Traditional and digital art

Farmland

Farmland
Click the picture to see a larger version.

Yesterday I went for a drive in the country. I took some photos from the car and today I did this ink and watercolor sketch from one of the photos. I wanted to try using masking fluid to hold back little bits of white. It worked. The white flecks you see are the white of the paper and not white ink applied later.

I started by drawing the basic big shapes with a very light gray pen. I’ve noticed lately that the pictures I like the best have a simple structure of four or fewer major sections dividing the page. I designed this one to have four horizontal sections – the sky, the field, the dirt road, and the dark weedy foreground. I applied ink using both my finger and a waterbrush working up from light gray to black. I then added a bit of yellow and green watercolor. The brown was done with brown ink. I let everything dry and rubbed off the masking fluid to reveal the whites. The last thing I did was to use a pencil to better define the buildings.

Travelogue Artist Watercolor Journal, Pueen Latex Tape used as a masking fluid, Tombow ABT N95 dual tipped brush pen, Derwent #2 round waterbrush, mix of Pentel Sign Pen black and brown inks, Kuretake ZIG Brushables 010 brush pen, Pentel light gray brush pen, 50/50 mix of Noodler’s Lexington Gray and water in a Derwent #2 round waterbrush, Noodler’s Benenke Black ink, vintage Sheaffer’s Balance Black and Pearl Lifetime pen with 14K gold nib ca. 1929-30 filled with Noodler’s Benenke Black ink, Pentel EnerGel 0.5 black ballpoint pen, Daniel Smith watercolors, and a Pentel 0.9mm mechanical pencil. Image is 16.25×5 inches (41.3×13 cm).

Jim