SKETCHBOOK: White Pen Demo!

I belong to a couple of online sketch groups..."Artist's Journal Workshop" and "Urban Sketchers Midwest" on Facebook.  Tonight, I decided to try doing a little sketch demo in response to some very nice compliments I received over the weekend for the drawing of the SPOONS in my last blog post.  I had several people ask me about the techniques I used...especially how I used the white Sharpie markers. While the drawing above is not my favorite...it will get the job done for this tutorial.

Below is the set up I used at my kitchen table.  Usually I work in my studio, but I liked putting the knife and fork on the woodgrain.  The orange reflections in the shadows, the warm glow of the lamp...all helped to keep the silverware from looking too much like a black and white drawing.  You can also see my basic supplies that I use all the time when I sketch.

I rarely use pencils for an "under drawing", but sometimes I will to get the basic proportions laid out on the page.  I have spray-mounted some pastel paper into my sketchbook, as I enjoy working on toned paper.  After I did a very loose sketch with the 3B pencil, I dabbed it with a kneaded eraser, to take out most of the pencil line.

Then I used a #03 BLACK PRISMACOLOR felt tip marker to draw the contour lines of the knife and fork.  When the line work was done, I used the kneaded eraser again, to get rid of the pencil line.  I did not scrub very hard, as I didn't want to disturb the texture of the paper, or leave noticeable light areas.

Next comes the highlights with my new favorite friend...the WATER-BASED (poster paint) White SHARPIE marker.  This is the "extra fine" point.  I will not be leaving these marks as intense as they look at this stage. But I want to define the brightest areas before adding washes.

I do not consider myself a "watercolorist" really.  I prefer oils for my "fine art" paintings. But when I'm sketching...anything goes!  So technically...this is a "mixed-media" sketch.  Below you see that I am ready to add color now.  When I go out sketching, I carry several of the hollow-handle "water brushes". There are various manufacturers of them...mine are made by PENTEL and SAKURA.  My watercolor kit is a KOI Pocket Field Sketch Box (also made by SAKURA).

I began by laying in a rusty orange around the objects...basically the color of the wooden table. I then use a purply-brown for the shadows.  I will come back after these layers dry and punch the values of the shadows to a darker tone.  I then add some cool blues to the darker areas of the metal...then some purples on top.  These colors look brighter and more intense when wet...but remember that I am painting on a gray paper.  It will mute the colors as it dries.

I then add some of the warmer colors...golden for where the light hits...some oranges in the shadows that are closest to the table to pick up the reflected woodgrain.  These colors also knock back the very white lines from the Sharpie marker.

I then start to soften the transitions of the brightest highlights into the mid to darker tones of the metal.  I mix WHITE WATER COLOR with a few chosen colors.  Where things are really yellow, I mute those areas a bit with the cool aqua.  It's almost like painting with guache...but its very watered down, and is semi-transparent when dry.  If the reflections get too "cool"...I add white to orange, and lay that on top of the aqua...it dulls both colors a bit, which helps.

Once the washes are completely dry, I come back in with the Sharpie marker again.  But I use it sparingly, and only for the brightest highlights.

The last stage is to go back into the black line to darken it up. Usually I just re-draw the outer-most line of the basic shape of the object. I let the other lines stay softer from the layers of paint. When I thought I was all done, I decided to add a little bit of some light gray to brighten up some highlights on the fork.

And here is the final sketch/painting with my models!  Hope this little demo helps you try some new techniques with your sketches!

SKETCHBOOK: White Pens!

Had a fun little surprise in the mail today...a couple of WHITE SHARPIE MARKERS arrived that I had ordered from Amazon.com.

My friend, Joyce Harbin Cole, introduced me to these pens a couple of weeks ago, when I saw a cool sketch she had done on her blog ("Draw Daily"...Livingston County Courthouse).  So tonight, I did a little test page that you see above.  When I posted this on a couple of Facebook Sketcher Group pages, it lit up the boards with comments.  Apparently, lots of artists are looking for a good opaque white pen!

These are "water-based" (also called "poster paint") markers, but are permanent when dry, so they work well with my sketches and water color washes.  I'm excited to play with them more!  Thanks again, Joyce!

UPDATE 3-22-14 ---------------------------------------------
Here is a sketch that I just finished today of those same spoons shown above, using the "Extra Fine" point white Sharpie marker. I glazed washes over the white, to soften the brightness.  Then I added a little color mixed with white watercolor, to get some opaque tones into the highlighted areas. The tree sketch was done last weekend (with a little bit of the marker used on the highlights in the bark).  I love these markers!

SCULPTURE: Monster Heads! Pt.4

Run for the Ozark Hills...KING HOG ATTACKS!

Hard to believe it...but I started this project officially TWO years ago!  I had ideas of making a sculpture of an epic battle between two Giant Monsters: "KING HOG vs BULLZILLA" (Click the link to see the backstory.)  But it took seeing the movie "Pacific Rim" last year to get the ball rolling.  Granted, I may never do the full sculpt, but at least I've got a fun Monster Head series going now.  And I love making the "mini posters" of the creatures in action!

For any fan of the ARKANSAS RAZORBACKS, you'll see the inspiration for this creature. For those who have followed my blog, you'll be familiar with the general process I use.

For the other three monsters in this series, I did not create any sketches beforehand...I just let myself be surprised where things would end up.  But when I was having a new clutch put into my car a few months ago, I just figured I'd use the time to kick around some drawings of how KING HOG might look.  I wanted to exaggerate the tusks, and give him some "razor sharp" spikes on his back.

The project started with a wooden base and a nail to secure the foil that forms the core.  I often do a loose sculpt to get general proportions in place.  This will be totally replaced bit by bit with more refined elements.  You'll note the ball of foil with a dowel in it.  This was going to be the head, and I could rotate it for the best angle for "dramatic effect".  I decided not to use it with the rough sculpt.  But later changed my mind and redesigned the whole thing WITH the head as a separate piece.

Here are the various tusks and teeth that I baked separately. The gray color is from "Sculpy Firm", mixed with the pink "Super Sculpy" for better detail.  I then built a set of jaws with the teeth in place, and baked it again, so I would not keep messing them up with the rest of the sculpting process.

I worked from the snout to the back, adding details and fleshing out the forms.  As with the teeth, I made the spines separately, and baked them before putting them in place.

In the course of handling the sculpture, I found that the base had some cracks developing where I had quickly sculpted some rocks.  So I had to redo that area with a few simple shapes of clay.  Then I added a mixture of sand, small gravel and glue, to give the base some texture.

Here is the final sculpted piece before painting it.

Now comes the paint job...I always enjoy this phase of the project...it's the icing on the cake!  I started everything with a base coat of RED acrylic, since that is the proper color for any self-respecting razorback.  I then added a very thin wash of black, to pop the detail.  After that, its just a matter of adding multiple layers of dry-brushing and glazing until I am happy with the results.

This is the finished color for KING HOG...

 Here is the current lineup of my KAIJU MONSTER HEADS.  I'm sure there are more to come!