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: