Sketches from the Holidays

"Eagel Creek Park Lake Sketch", 10"x6", Watercolor on Daler-Rowney Langton 200# Watercolor Sketchbook

It is a bad thing not to update at all for a whole week! Being busy is not an excuse... I did start a coupld of paintings and sketches but none of them are anywhere close to be finished or posted. This is typical me --- shifting attention every minute. I will try to finish some of these projects this week, I promise!

I had a very pleasant July 4th weekend, got some very good bristol board and pastel paper at 90% off price on a sale of Purdue bookstore. To celebrate this deal, I went with a dear friend on small sketch trips around town. We went to Eagel Creek State Park on Saturday afternoon and spend a lovely afternoon sketching near the woods and by the lake.

The lake sketch I did was whipped out in a hurry -- less than an hour from start to finish, and I did not have time to even do a line sketch on the watercolor paper! The sun is setting, the sky was a lovely light red-violet hue on the west side, and turned gradually toward blue to the east. I used a very diluted cerulean blue to start the piece, using a 3/4 inch brush to cover the whole sky area as soon as possible, and dropped in some cadmium red before the paper started to dry. I pulled the blue and red down for the lake surface in uneven strokes to add some interest, and used a mix of the same two colors to paint the cloud shadows wet in wet. Then I waited the paper to dry -- it did, actually, very fast, as a typical result of painting on this Langton paper, -- and painted the middle ground foliages using a #0 Isabey squirrel quill brush. I try to change color every two or three strokes, something I learned in a workshop with Mr. Jerry Smith that adds great intrest to relative flat areas. Then I used much stronger and warmer brown-green color to paint the forground trees and bushes, try to vary some edges but not very successful. Finally, I wetted the foreground water to drop in the reflection colors, and used a little dry-brush work to imply the reflected light on the lake surface.

One problem with sketching with very limited time is that all the brush strokes begin to be rushed and start to look the same -- no varieties in the brushwork describing the foreground trees. Also, the subtle color and value shifts in these foreground tree shapes are lost in my rush. Realizing this, I took several photos of the scene -- I would really like to do a studio painting planned out with thumbnails, value studies, color studies and the whole nine yard according to the photos and my on-site sketch, and see how it turns out. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed doing the sketch and realized even a quick study like this would actually allow a much impression and deeper understanding of the scene on the painter side, which can not be done with photo-reference only. Now I can still close my eyes and see the slight hinge of red on the east sky, which is not at all recognizable in my photo-refrences...

I also tried to make some nature journal style of studies of the woods in the park -- without pencil drawings, again, just playful and fun, getting more acquainted with my newly-acquired Isabey red-sable brushes (#6 and #8 here). I used a new color, oxide of Chromium, to mix with various siennas and umbers to mimic the mossy branch, and loved the resulted color mixtures very much. This color is slightly heavy and very opaque, yet great in discribing the rough texture of tree barks. Trying out something new is fun! What's more, drawing branches really trains the eye-hand coordiation and observation of negative shapes (in between branches). It is also a great way to get familiar with all the potentials of your brush fast. I'd like to do it more often...

"Nature Journal Page with Branch Study", 5"x8", Watercolor on Moleskin Watercolor Sketchbook

My painting buddy was also testing out new materials -- Canson 100# vellum bristol board and Isabey squirrel quill brushes. She fell in love with the brush immediately -- they leave a great variety of marks easily and holds a point really well, while in the mean time can hold a really large amount of water and paint. The softness of the brush did not bother her at all, and she did this cute little sketch of a car underneath the tree. I am amazed by her ability of capture the shape of a mechanical object so quickly yet accurately -- I can never get a car to seem right on paper! I also liked how the paints puddle and leave interesting shapes and marks on this smoother paper. It is not for large washes, but really wonderful for brushwork!

Plein air is surely fun... I wonder why I did not do it more often?...

"Accord Sketch", 4"x5", Watercolor on Canson 100# Vellum Bristol Board

More Flower Sketches

"Primrose Sketch", 5"x8", Watercolor on Moleskin Watercolor Sketchbook

I did these little sketches outdoors in the Lithy Botanical Garden in Peoria, Illinois. The flowers there were really lovely! But unfortunately, there is no shade around these beautiful little primroses... I really fell in love with the pink-violet color and the cup-shape formed by their delicate little pedals, and decided I had to sketch them despite the blinding sunlight reflected off the white paper. They sun also dried the washes much faster than usual and I just frantically kept on painting back into the half-dried washes -- surprisingly, the results did not turn out to be too bad and the puddles of paints formed lovely textures describing the subtle shades of pedals. They are not botanically accurate descriptions of the flowers, but I kind of liked how the paint and paper interacted with each other on the moleskin paper, and decided to try more of this way of working in the future.

I also tested a new box of Creatacolor Aqua Monolith watercolor pencils I just got from eBay, and was quite happy with the results. On moleskin paper, watercolor pencils can capture a certain degree of detail but still not as much as on bristol board or hot-pressed watercolor paper, due to the slight tooth of the moleskin book. But when I wet the drawings with a brush, the color also did not lift as much as on smoother paper, and redistributes more controllably with each brush-stroke. After it's dried, I decided that the colors were not as saturated as I'd like, so I painted back into the pedals with some more watercolor. Can you guess which two flowers are painted this way, and which two are entirely painted with watercolor? ^__^

After finished with the little primrose sketch, I tried to tackle this really gorgeous lily -- its inner pedals have really beautiful transition from the golden-yellow in the center to the deep purple-bronze color in the periphery. I found it a bit hard to control edge quality on the moleskin paper when trying to paint this lily the more traditional way (layering, wet into wet, blending, etc.). In the end I started to get a hang of how to do more controlled wet-in-wet strokes on this paper, but still feel it is not the best surface to paint this way. For more loose, sketchy effect, this is a good surface, but not if you want total control over it -- I still like it for what it is though. The colors got a little muddy on this lily sketch due to repeated rewetting, but I cherished the drawing -- I chose a really hard angle to draw it and felt really happy to be able to capture the wield curve of the pedals viewed from that angle -- and decided to post it anyway.

These are my first efforts to draw and paint flowers "en plein air" and I did learn a great deal from the efforts, as well as had loads of fun. Definitely should do it more often...

"Lily Sketch", 5"x8" (Page Size), Watercolor & Watercolor Pencils on Moleskin Watercolor Sketchbook