Currently Browsing: project Friday 41 articles
Project Friday: Go Ahead, Paint on Lightweight Drawing Paper
If there is one thing I would like to communicate to blog readers it’s that you need to go ahead and paint on whatever paper you have at hand. Simply because in the process of making the paint stick to paper that isn’t meant to have wet media on it you learn something about the […]
Project Friday—Let’s Collage
In this post I’ll walk you through a recent collage I made. This isn’t something that I preplanned. It’s simply something that I worked on with the materials at hand, moving from one thought to the next. I’ve turned the step-by-step into a Project Friday because I hope you’ll get up from the computer, make […]
Project Friday: Working Quickly in a Series of Sketches
There is always a lot of paper around the studio. Recently when I was putting away the camera equipment I “found” a large copier paper-sized box full of packets of 9 x 12 inch toned papers. There are light colors and dark colors. Some of it is smooth, some is textured. I purchased these packets […]
Project Friday: How To Deal with Crappy Days in Your Visual Journal
Here’s a question I’m asked frequently: How do you deal with crappy days in your journal? Not long ago a student explained to me that when she kept a written journal she would often write about the stress and frustration in that journal, but then never look back at it. She felt that her visual […]
Project Friday: A Bit More on Brush Pens
To wrap up Brush Pen week I was going to go on an on about the brush pen some more, but I realized that in 2015 I wrote a post that includes a video on brush pens from Jet Pens as well as a bunch of links to various brush pen posts in my blog. […]
Contour Line Sketches Are a Great Way to Warm Up
This post was originally published on February 17, 2017 during my website transition. Left: Here’s a less than 5-minute contour sketch I made of my husband Dick as he sat in the TV room. I used a fine point fountain pen. The sketch is in an 8 inch square journal. The squiggles in the hair […]
Project Friday—Improving Your Drawing Practice with Repetition, the Right Tool, Being Invested, and Celebration
Above: Practice sketches in a 6 x 8 inch journal using a thick, soft, solid, fiber-tipped black brush pen and Montana Marker (background) as well as a large, fat-leaded Lyra metallic pencil. I’m feeling around to sense the nuance in the pose, the angle of the eyes, the negative space that first attracted me, to […]
Making a Mess and Enjoying Every Moment
Left: 6 x 9 inch Canson watercolor board, with quick pen sketch—Platinum Carbon Black Ink Solid Brush Tipped Pen (worn down). There are some brush cleaning marks on this board, made by cleaning my white pen in the negative space, after I had infected it with color doing the next sketch shown below. Since there […]
Project Friday: Just Get Something Down on Paper
Above: Selfie made with bold Uni Posca pen (orange, the tip is about 1/4 inch wide) and a Sakura Pigment Medium Brush Pen (solid tip). The drawing is in a 9 x 12 inch Dylusions journal—which I cannot recommend for structural reasons specific to how I work. I'm sorry, but when I've worked in it […]
Project Friday on a Monday—Working in a Series: Meet the Finches
Above: Two entries from my current, ongoing Finch Series. Montana Acrylic Marker for background and underpainting, with Pentel pigment brush pen sketches and gouache all in a Japanese Lined Journal. You'll be able to read all about Nigel and Pete if you do. I love working in a series because it gives me an opportunity […]