Traditional and digital art
Today I did another sketch of the backyard. This time I used watercolor. I wanted to compare it with the marker sketch I did yesterday. I prefer to work with watercolor. It has a lot more variation of colors and techniques.
Fabriano Hot Press Watercolor paper, MyArtScape #8 round brush, and Daniel Smith watercolors. Image is 3.75X10 inches (9.5X25.4 cm).
Jim
Every year I try to capture the Fall colors in our backyard. I usually take photos. This year I did a small sketch with brush markers.
Fabriano Hot Press Watercolor paper, pencil, ZIG Brushables and Tombow brush markers. Image is 3.5X10 inches (9X25.4 cm).
Jim
Here’s another quick watercolor study done in one go with a single round brush. I drew with the brush working across the page from left to right. The hardest part was keeping it simple with a minimum number of brush strokes. I have a tendency to over work it and make it into a painting instead of leaving it a simple sketch. Simplicity is hard, but I think I managed to capture the shapes, colors, and lighting of the scene without over doing it.
Canson Watercolor Cold Press paper 5.5 x 8.5 inches (13.9 x 21.6 cm), Princeton #8 round brush, and Daniel Smith watercolors.
Jim
I’ve been admiring David Hockney’s watercolor sketchbook landscapes. I thought I would try to do something similar. This time I used a medium round water brush and Daniel Smith watercolors on 5.5×8.5 inch Canson watercolor paper. I looked at a black and white reference photo on my computer monitor that I had taken a few years ago near the Gallon House covered bridge near Silverton. These round brush watercolor sketches are fast and easy to do and I like the sparse simplicity.
Jim
Sometimes I use a sketch as a visual note to myself. Instead of trying to do a finished drawing on location I will do a quick sketch to capture an idea or impression of what I notice. I may later use the note to do a finished work instead of using a reference photo. Here are three approaches. Each one took me less than 10 minutes to draw. The first one uses line to establish shapes, structure, and proportions. The second is a tone sketch to remember the values, and the third is a color sketch to capture the local colors in the scene.
Jim
Click the picture to see a larger version.
Today I’m practicing my brush technique with another quick sketch of Bush park. I worked from a reference photo I took during a walk in the park. I did this directly with a single brush in one pass. I did the blue sky first into wet paper. I then did the foreground on wet paper with a couple of mixed greens, a dash of blue, and a couple of browns. Next, I brushed in the tree trunks working from left to right across the page. Finally I added the background foliage.
Canson Watercolor Cold Press paper 5.5 x 8.5 inches (13.9 x 21.6 cm), Princeton #8 round brush, and Daniel Smith watercolors.
Jim
Click the picture to see a larger version.
I discovered a sketchbook done by David Hockney of the landscapes of Yorkshire. I admired his simple use of a single round watercolor brush and thought I’d like to try his technique. I did this simple watercolor sketch on cold press paper using a single #8 round brush.
Canson Watercolor Cold Press paper 5.5 x 8.5 inches (13.9 x 21.6 cm), Princeton #8 round brush, and Daniel Smith watercolors.
Jim
Here is an example of painting on film. I used acrylic gouache on Dura-Lar matte film painting on both the front and the back.
Jim
I did this sketch on my iPad Pro 9.7 inch using an Apple Pencil. I used two iPads while doing this. I looked at the photo reference on my iPad Mini while drawing on the iPad Pro. Here is the reference photo.
I like working this way. I’m not tied to the photo’s composition like I am when I place the photo in a layer under the drawing layer.
Jim
I did this in Affinity Photo on my iPad Pro 9.7 inch using an Apple Pencil. I wanted to see if I could emulate the look of Degas’s landscape monotypes done with oil paint on a copper plate. Affinity Photo has a wide variety of excellent brushes. I used one of the Etching brushes, one of the Texture brushes, and one of the Oil brushes and switched back and forth between black and the light cream color I used for the background. Done from imagination.
iPad Pro 9.7 inch and Apple Pencil, Affinity Photo app.
Jim