Loose Sheet Journaling

My Town, Watercolour

This is another "intuitive painting", done on watercolour paper.  

I'm trying out what Roz Stendahl calls "loose sheet journaling".  Sometimes loose sheets are just easier to work on than in a book, or sometimes there is a loose sheet of paper that you just have to try RIGHT NOW.  Inspiration is like that.  Sometimes Roz uses loose sheets or cards for a special project and makes a slip case of some sort to hold them all when the project is finished.

I have a couple of other reasons for trying this out.  Occasionally someone will see something that I've done and will want to own it.  Or, I may want to do something else with the piece (turn it into artist trading cards or bookmarks, for example).  These things are all difficult if I've done the work in a journal.  So, for work I do on watercolour paper, I'm trying this approach for awhile.  Once I've accumulated a stack of loose pages, I may bind them using my Bind it All.  I did that once with the Index Card A Day project.

Dribbles and Bubbles

These are more pages from Whims in Watercolor 2:  Loose and Fearless, Joanne Sharpe's latest class.  This special journal will give me lots of inspiration for future play!

More Men in Hats

ATC, Markers

The Park

I wasn't fond of this when I finished it, and I wasn't going to post it anywhere. But it kind of grew on me, and I got some positive reaction to my other "intuitive painting", Vancouver in the Rain, when I posted it on Instagram.   So, as a kind of experiment, I posted The Park on Instagram with the comment, "This one not so much", and someone commented that they liked it and could see it hanging on their wall!

Art is so subjective - fascinating!  I must say that the encouragement makes me want to experiment with intuitive painting a little more.

Purple Forest

Gelatos and Watercolor on canvas paper

This is another "intuitive" painting.  Here again, the pink didn't scan well; it is more of a hot pink.

It Didn't Start out Purple

Artist Trading Card, Markers

For these value studies, I thought I pulled out the same gray marker I used in my last post.  The barrel of the marker is gray.  It went on gray.

By the next day, it had dried purple.  And what's more, it isn't actually this grape colour, it is more magenta.  Usually my scanner is good with colours, but not this time.  These really are "magic pens", as advertised, only in a slightly different way!

Men in Hats Artist Trading Cards

Markers

Some men in hats jumped out of the journal and onto artist trading cards for our July swap.

After doing one in colour, I decided to play with values:

It's a Jungle Out There

Liquid Frisket, Part 2

Joanne has us drawing and lettering with drawing gum to preserve our whites.

Playing with Liquid Frisket

Whims in Watercolor 2: Loose and Fearless is off to the beach, with some liquid frisket, or drawing gum.  It's all done in Joanne Sharpe's loose style, although we did do some thumbnails first:

Vancouver in the Rain

One day I tried my hand at intuitive painting.  I'm not sure if I have the definition exactly correct, but I applied paint to the paper without thinking.  At some point in the process I think you're supposed to look at what you've done (from all directions) until you "see something" in the paint.  Then, you complete the abstract piece.  

I tried a couple of pieces, and will probably do more.  I seemed to have trouble stopping at the right time, as well as "seeing things".  I finished both of them with pen doodles.  I think this one was the most successful, although I might post the other one as well.  I'm calling this one "Vancouver in the Rain". 

Using up Paint

These journal pages began as a way to use up the watercolour paint on the mixing tray of my palette.

The doodles were added with a Sailor fude and gel pens.

And then, because I couldn't stop, I tried some on canvas paper.

Watercolour Crayons on the Gelli Plate

I've seen a few people playing with Scribble Sticks on the gelli plate, so I had to try with the supplies I have on hand, namely Karat Aquarell Watercoloring Crayons.

The method I prefer is to lightly spray the plate with water and then draw directly with the crayons.  (To get a light spray of water, hold the spray bottle further away.)  Here are a couple of my experiments along the way:

cardstock

I love the textures you get with a lighter application of water.

watercolour paper

Steve McQueen

Frank Sinatra

Elegant Writer on Canvas Paper

Benny Hill

I Eat My Peas With Honey

Lettering - Daniel Smith Luminescent Watercolors, Duochrome Arctic Fire and Pencil Crayon

I did this for the July Westcoast Calligraphy Society Love of Letters challenge.  The July  prompt is "food".

Douglas Fairbanks

Pencil Crayon

Men in Hats

I know I've gone through a "drawing men in hats" phase before, but indulge me please.

Playing with Metallic Pencil Crayons

I was browsing Roz Stendahl's blog and came across this post on drawing with metallic pencil crayons. She's the bomb of portrait drawing, IMHO.

I couldn't resist giving Jack Lemon a go.

Lincoln

Fruit Crate Label, pencil crayon

Boss

Fruit Crate Label, pencil crayons

More Fruit Crate Labels

The fruit crate labels, from a book published by Dover, are a great way to practice my hand-eye coordination. 

Sunflower

Fruit-Crate Label, Direct to Gouache

Good Samaritan 5

Golden Girl

Pencil Crayon

The Good Samaritan 4

ATC, Markers

Old-Time Fruit Crate Label

Artist Loft paints

Down the Instagram Rabbit Hole

Do you ever go down that hole?

Retail Therapy

Watercolour, Parallel Pen

Watercolour, Gouache

The Title Page

I'm getting a little tired of sketching my watercolor palette on the first page of every new journal I start.  Sketching my palette was an idea that I got from Liz Steel, but I don't change colors in my palette very often, so I thought I might use the first page as a place to do a lettering exemplar.  Then, I can use it for reference throughout the journal.  (Whether this new idea will continue remains to be seen.)

I copied this from two pieces done by Ben Shahn using gouache with a paint brush.

Pushing the Values on Toned Paper

I have been playing with pencil crayons on toned paper for a couple of days.  It took me awhile to get the hang of it.

I started with Magic Pencils in the garden:

Something wasn't quite right though, and I wasn't happy.  A drawing needs a good variety of values (light and dark), and the magic pencils didn't have the ranges I needed - not much white, no black.  Back in my office/studio this morning, I got out the Prismacolors and enhanced what I did yesterday.  I had to really think about it though, and do a little research.

Here are my notes for next time, using a 5 value scale from lightest to darkest:

1. Decide which value the paper is going to represent.  On black paper, for example, the paper would be the darkest value.  On this dark rust, it was about Value 4 out of 5.
2. Pick your pencil crayon colors based on value - white will be Value 1/5, black will be 5/5.  (If you're working on black paper, you won't need black.)
3. Do an initial drawing thinking mostly about placing the objects on the paper. 
4. Now concentrate on values.  Unless you're working on black paper, it might be easiest to darken the darkest shadow areas at this point.  Then I find it easiest to think about the lightest values, and so on, working back towards the middle.

Here is another one I did, after adding the Prismacolors:

And here's my initial drawing: