Currently Browsing: Annigoni Designo 8 articles
Mixed Media Portrait on Toned Paper
If you’re going to play around with mixed media I encourage you to seek out toned papers. The strokes and values you achieve on the toned background make a fun departure from white paper. This sketch of an Earth’s World Fairgoer (who was wearing black lipstick) is in a hand bound journal I made with […]
Warm-up Sketches and Studies
I don’t think people spend enough time doing warm-ups and studies. I think part of the hold up is that people listen to their internal critics and buy into the “it’s got to be perfect” baloney. But part of the hesitation in doing more studies and warm-up sketches grows also out of a worry over […]
Television: The Big Bang Theory
For various reasons I’ve been rewatching shows I watched when they first ran. These days with all the streaming possibilities it’s hard some days to remember what TV used to be like, with the three networks and seasons, and summer re-runs and everyone in the office watching the same top shows. Then of course we […]
Painting on Toned Paper Watercolor (Mostly)
You don’t have to work in gouache to paint on toned paper. I’ve written about this before. You can use your watercolor paints with less water and achieve rich, saturated colors that work well on toned paper. If you need a lighter color over a dark base you can of course mix a little bit […]
Remembering My Budgerigar and the Naming of Pets
When we lived in Australia I had a budgerigar—a.k.a. budgie, a.k.a. grass parakeet. They are native to Australia and fly in great flocks over the iron-rich red desert of the interior of the continent. I thought I loved birds until I saw these in their natural habitat and then everything clicked together for me—geology, geography, […]
In Context—Painting Rocks
All my students are groaning right now as they read the title of this post: “In Context—Painting Rocks.” Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on about Ruskin, today. I just wanted to post this rock portrait because April marked a return to painting in color for me, after a long bout of pen and […]
Sketching with Neocolor II Water-soluble Wax Pastels—Doodle of a Chicken
Today’s post is all contained in the video below. In this video I discuss how to transfer a drawing using graphite transfer paper; build up a color sketch from my transferred doodle using Neocolor II water-soluble wax pastels; discuss different ways I use this art material; and provide a lightfastness chart. I’ve come back to […]
Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Experiments
Because of my recent International Fake Journal Month Journal I’ve been experimenting with Caran d’Ache Neocolor II—water-soluble wax crayons. I am using them without water activation. These Neocolor II experiments come after I haven’t used them for years (they were packed away for a good period of time during the move, but even before that […]