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In Context: Found Photos of the Girls
This is a page from a small Hahnemühle Toned paper journal. The photo “stickers” are about an inch wide. I found a stack of these stickers from 1990-91 while clearing out some stuff in the downsizing. I put them in a couple journals I have going right now, and tossed the extras. I figure […]
Sketching on Any Old Paper You Have At Hand
Sometimes we can get into our heads. We can spend time telling ourselves all the reasons we can’t take time right now and paint. As a teacher for over 30 years I think I’ve heard every excuse there is: no space to set up, don’t have the materials I want to work with; I don’t […]
Making Neutrals with a Secondary Triad
Update: May 14, 2022. The paper used for this portrait was from a pad purchased in 2000-02. Magnani Portofino paper has been “revamped.” The current version of this paper is NOT one I would recommend for wet media work. You can see a post reviewing the currently available paper on this blog on May […]
A Different Sort of Wizard—Special Circumstances
Today seemed a good day to share another one of my wizard paintings because, well next month (April) on my Patreon blog I’m going to be sharing the full, realtime version of this sketch as a secondary demo. (You can already see the sketch silent and sped up to only 3 minutes long on […]
Testing the Twone Sketchbook with Kraft Cardstock Covers
Do I actively seek out the most obscure commercially bound books containing non-art paper to test? No, it simply seems like that sometimes. I grew up with a small weekly allowance paid after the completion of standard house and family chores. That allowance had to stretch from candy to art materials. Let’s just say I […]
Pushing a Sketch
It’s very rare that I don’t finish a sketch. If something goes awry during the sketching I typically keep pushing just so I can see what’s possible. I learn a lot at moments like that. On this date I was using a granulating blue on a pen sketch of a little black dog. I usually […]
Being Fussy Doesn’t Really Bother Me All That Much
I think if I sketched on an iPad doing white hairlines would be pretty easy, but then I wouldn’t have the fun of messing with white gouache, or gel pens, or any of the things I end up using while working on paper. I got very fussy at the end of this sketch, but I’m […]
Different Ways to Journal
Ever wonder what happens when you retire a tracking dog? They don’t every really retire. Up until her death, two years later, almost exactly, Dottie was still showing me she was happy to show me all the things in the vicinity of our walk routes that had human scent on them. The above photo is […]
Another Dog Portrait…
As we leave July and my Patreon discussions about dog portraits I simply wanted to make a case, through one more portrait, about contrast. It’s vital, it draws the eye, it’s fun to build up. Here’s a sketch from 2018. I liked the textures (and suggested textures) so much that all I wanted was a […]
The Case for Not Finishing a Sketch
I’m the first person to encourage people to finish what they start. In fact I encourage people to push past the point where they think they have finished, because until you “break” a few sketches you don’t really know where that point of finish resides. But I also wanted to put a word in today […]