If rubber duckies were art models (sketching tips!)

If rubber duckies were art models (sketching tips!)

by | Feb 28, 2023 | Fine Art & Sketching

Today I thought it might be fun to let you watch over my shoulder – and maybe even draw WITH me – and give you some sketching tips while I do one of my daily drawings! I missed going to my Life Drawing group last week – so decided to make my rubber duckies pose for me….

If you’re wondering about the French girl reference, remember Titanic? Rose tells Jack, “draw me like one of your French girls”, referring to the nude portraits he’s sketched of Parisian women in brothels. So there’s that. LOL!

Tutorial: If Rubber Duckies were Art Models

Grab a piece of paper or a sketchbook, and a pencil – and draw a “French girl” duckie along with me!

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

If you want more time…

Here’s a photo of the ducks so you can spend some time with it….and suggest some names for them too. Family name, individual first names, I’d love your suggestions!

Sketch along

Grab a piece of paper and a number two pencil – that’s all you need. As a matter of fact you can draw on lined notebook paper! Anything you’ve got. I used a Gamma sketchbook by Stillman and Birn – great surface for pencils, and I used a lead holder with a 2B lead, and a 9B Grafwood for the darks. The small sharpener for this pencil is this one. 

Size and shape relationships

Pay attention to the connection between shapes – where does the head of one duck meet up with the tail of another? How far down on the head are the eyes when looking at this angle?

Shadows and highlights are a fun thing to add to a quick sketch like this too. But that’s from this overachiever…if a line drawing is what you have time to muster up, that’s awesome too!

Don’t know what to draw?

There’s plenty of resources out there!

Draw what’s right in front of you

Pick up any object in your house, and draw that! Try the kitchen and garage, there are lots of very interesting objects in both.

Silly Holidays

If you’re stuck for what to draw, see what the goofy holiday is for the day! Last week I painted an easy card with tortilla chips for National Tortilla Chip Day.…one of several sites is here  to see what day it is today!

Doodlewashed

Charlie posts daily challenges at Doodlewashed every month – so if you don’t know what to draw, see what he’s got for the month and use those ideas!

Urban Sketchers

Sometimes it’s motivating to join your local chapter of Urban Sketchers – you’ll have lots of local folks to learn from, as well as someone else planning a day and time to go out, and they’ll point you at an interesting subject.

Plein Air Groups

Do a search in your area for plein air painting groups. Some have a presence on Facebook, others have websites.

Supplies

Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art

  1. Gamma sketchbook by Stillman and Birn
  2. Koh i Noor Lead holder pencil
  3. Koh i Noor 2B/4B lead 
  4. Staedtler lead holder sharpener 
  5. Grafwood 9B, Caran d’Ache 

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Sketching with water soluble ink

Sketching with water soluble ink

by | Dec 28, 2022 | Fine Art & Sketching, Watercolor Pens/Inks

Water soluble ink can make sketching easier – learn to sketch a winter forest and vase of lavender in the video!

Studio cleaning and storage-swapping

But first….some BIG NEWS! (that few may care about, ha!)

I cleaned the STUDIO!!! A deep clean wasn’t done in here since 2021 and it was so needed. My huge counter was intended for staging projects. But it was buried in stacks of supplies, partly done projects, wanna-do projects, and so much more. The new tools I got this year didn’t have a “place” so they all sat on the counter….so…..

A year ago I added a drafting table to the studio, and reorganized in its wake. (a little footage coming next week!) I had some of my art supplies in the next room, but I found those just never got touched. Too far away! Things I rarely use like dies and sequins and glitter are now in the other room. New stuff can now fit in drawers!

I’m super excited for what this’ll mean for having several projects underway at once. Now I can lay them out without stuff falling over and keep on juggling everything! (Vienna steals pencils when things fall down, eeep!)

PLUS I found a bunch of STUFF! Things I’d been looking for. Watercolor dot cards. Brushes and other materials I was going to test. Inks that got hidden behind other things. Papers, papers, papers. I uncovered my pen storage box – and found my Visconti Mirage pen inside!! The box had been so buried I practically forgot it. But no more! And my dremel project is now back in sight – it lights up, so watch out for that in the month ahead, I think it would be a great valentines project. Can’t wait to get going on it!

Okay enough of all that now. Let’s get to some water soluble ink sketching!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tutorial: Techniques for Sketching with water soluble ink

Since my Mirage needed to come out of hiding – and get itself all washed and new ink put inside after sitting there for over a year! – it’s time to do a little sketching. These are easy so I hope you’ll consider trying one!

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

Related links

  1. Another Mont Blanc ink video, wicked cool technique with bleach
  2. Stamped Watercolor classes
  3. Stamped Watercolor YT playlist

Test water soluble inks and papers

You might have some inks that are water soluble and not even know it! Get some paper and do a couple tests like I did. Try one line first, so you know if you just do a single outline, how much black/grey ink wash will come from it. Will you need to do two strokes? Or if you scribble over an area, will the lines disappear on that paper or not? Make sure you’re testing on papers you might like to use. I’m going to be making some postcards this week to mail out to chilly friends, so I need to test the ones I’ve got. (I found them, yay!)

Winter forest in water soluble ink

Since most of my country is under a deep freeze right now I thought maybe some folks would sketch some frosty-covered trees out the window! Spritzing is an easy technique, and sometimes comes out with no need to do the second inking pass – just the spray may be enough. Try out a couple papers and see what works for whatever pens you have.

Vase of Flowers (Lavender) in water soluble ink

The vase is another simple idea – you can make a simple rounded vase. It doesn’t need to be fancy – and if you’ve got some AI floral stamps, then make some stems to watercolor! (Yes your watercolor markers count as water soluble INK!)

Have you done a year-end cleaning yet?

It’s always my favorite deep-clean, because I’m already in the new-year-new-me mindset. And finding things that I wanted to use and haven’t yet, well, that’s just downright inspiring!

Supplies

Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art

 

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Drawing Lanterns in 3 different perspectives (and a giveaway!)

Drawing Lanterns in 3 different perspectives (and a giveaway!)

by | Dec 16, 2022 | Fine Art & Sketching, Watercolor Pens/Inks

Why hello there and happy weekend! I’ve got a bit of a drawing tutorial for you today, I hope you’re going to try it! I’ve found that my 3-layer-tutorials have become popular, since you can choose whether to start with the simplest, try one that’s going to push you a little, or go for it with a crazier one! In the tutorial I’ll show you how to sketch out the perspective first, then color it with water based markers.

At the end of this post there’s info about the giveaway – please only enter if you’d actually use the markers…they’re gently used and I’d love them to go to a home that’ll put them to paper! 🙂

This whole lantern idea was borne of a drawing idea I had – I’ve been wanting to play with my new graphite pencils, and give them a real test to stand up to! They didn’t pass it, necessarily; they’re “matte” pencils which means the glare will be kept to a minimum – but I didn’t like that I couldn’t get a really great dark from them very fast, so switched to charcoal. Which….reflects. So I had to find a spot in the studio with no light glaring on it, thus the strange place I shot the photo!

But after nestling my marshmallow-toasting mice inside, I realized this is a project few would replicate, and as I had some big challenges, it wasn’t good for teaching. So instead, you get one of my easy/medium/challenging perspective lessons! Which might be far more helpful to everyone. LOL!

Tutorial: Drawing Lanterns in 3 different perspectives

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

1. Easy / 1 point perspective

Looking directly at a lantern, not from higher or lower, and at a particular distance, you might not see the posts (poles?) of the lantern that are in the back. But if you raise the perspective slightly, and give it a little distance, the vanishing point can be in the center above the lantern – and that way you can see INTO the bottom of the lantern. It would affect the top (cap? lid?) of the lantern, but not enough to stress out if you’ve got a rounded top like this one!

2. Tougher / two point perspective

Two point perspective has two vanishing points, one on the left, one on the right. If you’re making something up as I am in today’s post, you can put those points anywhere – just put them ON the horizon. Here I chose the top left and top right corner of the boxes I drew. But sometimes (see next lantern) it’s totally off the page. Sometimes in the next room!

Each corner, though, has an edge that’ll join with the vanishing point, and those lines determine the interior bottom of the lantern. If the top has a fancy shape there are all kinds of rules that’ll apply – but use the rounded one I showed. Then you only need to worry about getting the “roofline” to join up with a VP.

3. Hardest / from below

The horizon line moves BELOW an object when it’s above your head. And in this case, the right hand side VP is off the page! And yes, I did tweak the bottom section after the video, I didn’t feel like posting the mushy one, LOL!

Card for patrons

I post videos (usually) weekly for patrons, sometimes just sneak peeks, and sometimes projects no one else sees….this is one of them. Join patreon to watch it get made!

 

And now, that giveaway!

The folks at Sketchmarker sent me a full(ish) set of their Aqua water-based markers, the Animal set, so now I can let someone else get some use from this set! I’m short three colors, but none are in the Animals set. 🙂 

How do you qualify?

  1. Go tap the like button on YT for this video, and leave a comment there if you have a sec. The algorithm needs a kick in the rear end and your engagement makes a huge difference!
  2. Join Artventure. I’m excited about the new community and would love for you to be part of it! It’s FREE, and you don’t have to get the app, you can just access it via the web. And starting in January, I’ve got a plan for fun activities and prizes, so you’ll want to be part of it all.
  3. Leave a comment telling me you’ve done the above, AND what YOU would like to learn to draw in 2023!

The winner will ONLY be announced here on the blog on Christmas Eve. So you might want to subscribe to my blog via email, which you can do below….just sayin’. 

 

Supplies

Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art

  1. Bee Paper Mixed Media Sketchbook https://bit.ly/3QhOcWX
  2. Sketchmarker Aqua
  3. Silver Brush Black Velvet Round #8:  BLICK –  AMZ
  4. Pencil drawing:

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    Game-Changer Fountain Pen Tip: 1 nib, 2 line weights (ft Ellington Pens)

    Game-Changer Fountain Pen Tip: 1 nib, 2 line weights (ft Ellington Pens)

    by | Nov 7, 2022 | Doodling, Fine Art & Sketching

    I wish I could have made the title even longer to include And There’s A Cute Downloadable To Try For Your Christmas Cards and a Real Time Video Available Too! But I think the Googles would have my head. Ha! So even if you’re  not a pen and ink person, there’s fun for you too.

    Today I’ve got a great tip for you that I think I’ve talked about a little bit before – but I don’t know that I focused on it much. So let’s do that today! Note there are a couple projects here:

    1. A large fox piece with watercolor + ink, kinda crazy background. Available for purchase here.
    2. Smaller pen and ink only fox with mouse. Also a digistamp printable here.
    3. Drawing #2 is a realtime video at Artventure. Find it in the Pen and Ink Students group.

    First in the video is a deeper dive on the Ellington pens I showed last week. The only negative (minor) that I saw was that after using the pen for a couple days or carting it around to a sketch event, the nib section came ever so slightly loose and needed to be screwed back in a little. I mean a little. That’s no reason in my book to dislike a pen, it only happened after big usage.

    Tutorial: Game-Changer Fountain Pen Tip

    Testing your pens to see if they create two line weights is what I expect fountain pen peeps to go do after watching this. And that’s ok. Leave me a comment and tell me if you did! ha!

    Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

    A rather crazy idea

    I wanted to try something new. A realistic image for part of a wash-and-ink piece, but leaving the background not realistic….with a mix of linear, graphical elements and loose and flowy ones. You’ll have to let me know if you think I succeeded!

    I’ve posted the original over on my fine art site…or you can get prints (with or without frames), or cards over at Society6!

    Sweet fox

    This pretty little fox was drawn in pen and ink and colored afterwards–the opposite of my preference! But I wanted it to be available for folks to cover if desired, so I was lucky that the pencil wasn’t opaque enough to cover it – so be careful if using pencils with it. Some will give the detail a really cloudy look. However – this one pictured was colored on the Hanehmule paper, which is smooth and nice for pen and ink, but quite terrible for colored pencil! It’ll be easier to work with on a paper with more tooth. 🙂

    Draw your own…

    If you want to draw your own fox, head over to Artventure where the realtime video is inside the Pen and Ink Students group. It’s just got music in it – but the outline is there so you can try your hand at drawing fur.

    Or color one up!

    If you just want to color up this cute fox and mouse, head to Art-Classes to purchase the printable!

    Which one might you do?

    Are you fancying a coloring session with the printable, or maybe being brave enough to draw a fox yourself? Or perhaps you’ve got some holiday shopping in mind – you can get the Winter Fox as prints or cards….or buy the original if you’re the lucky first one to shop!

    Supplies

    Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art

    Watercoloring the Redwoods: The Happy Couple

    Watercoloring the Redwoods: The Happy Couple

    by | Oct 21, 2022 | Fine Art & Sketching, Watercolor

    My niece is married! I’ve been to the wedding and back, and what a lovely trip. Not just watching her and her fiance tie the knot, but seeing family, and getting my first vacation in many many years under my belt. The project today is one that I completed weeks before her wedding – this is a painting from one of the happy couple’s engagement photos. Size is a half sheet of watercolor paper – not my normal size, so there were lots of challenges!

    Tutorial: Watercoloring the redwoods

    The clips here are in realtime, but there’s not much of the figures; the painting was large enough that my normal camera setup wasn’t working well, so most was just my phone. 

    Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

    The process

    My first concern was in whether I could render the figures so they’d look like who they were; Ive achieved the “looks human” level a bunch of times before, but not always looking like that specific person. This painting might have changed my mind about my skills – but I still did a quick painting of the faces only on the back of a scrap sheet of watercolor paper, just to see if it was worth starting on the large paper or not. I use way too many layers to be able to tell you what color was used for the skintones, sorry!

    Painting the redwoods background

    The background is one I feel more competent to explain, even if the figures weren’t! First step here was using masking fluid for outlining the figures as well as painting some of the leaves and a bunch of little dots to make it all magical. Let that dry completely. Go for a walk and make it a long one since the panic is setting in about whether the forest will ruin the work I already did!

    Plan out where you’ll start and end a background like this. Leave as few ‘leading edges’ as possible – because that’ll be less to dry! I turned the painting upside down so at least those first strokes wouldn’t be a problem and I’d only have to deal with a leading edge on the left as I moved across the painting. 

    Once the right column was done, I made sure the left edge of that section was VERY wet and kept checking while painting the lighter middle section. Don’t dry! To finish the last column I turned the painting right-side-up again and painted from the top (so I could keep edges wet) and then ended on the bottom right fern area.

    Back to flipping the painting around furiously: while still wet, I lifted color for bokeh dots using a baby wipe. A bunch worked well, but as it dried, some had funky edges, so a baby wipe over the dry paper softened those.

    Then I had to address all that white that was reserved by the masking fluid; in sections like the fern, I painted the entire section with lighter green and dropped other colors in. That left some highlights in those areas underneath that color but softened and blurred the whole section.

    The other white sections were not painted as above – I used very very thin paint over the white leaves, and that will disappear into the background while toning the white. Then after drying, the dark green was mixed thick enough to give solid coverage to the graphic shapes. 

    To create smaller but more subtle details, I painted another set of leaves with thinner, more transparent green paint.

    Last but not least, the redwood branches! In the photo they’d had sun sprinkling highlights on them but I didn’t want it looking like snow. So again, I toned down the white masked areas, then painted the dark redwood leaves, bringing the color up over the highlights so they were broken up.

    Have you ever tried portraits?

    I may start trying more again; my figure drawing group has started up again at a time that I can’t attend, but I might look for a different group. Maybe 2023 will be the year I make more serious attempts at figurative work, who knows!

    Supplies

    Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art

    Perspective Practice: Drawing SPOOKY buildings! (plus new wash & ink class)

    Perspective Practice: Drawing SPOOKY buildings! (plus new wash & ink class)

    by | Sep 23, 2022 | Fine Art & Sketching, Watercolor

    I promised to return with more perspective today….and I have it in spades! I started down one road and ended up in a different place; you can thank three friends who saw what I was working on and their eyes bugged out. “Is that going to be a CLASS?” So ….yes, there’s a new class too! Let’s get down to it, shall we?

     

    Tutorial: Perspective – Spooky Buildings

    Today’s video is a little long – and has a first half, the spooky barn that’s wash-and-ink style, then a second half with a massive (18 hour!) drawing! Don’t worry I didn’t make it 18 hours, but…yeah. You’ll hear how both projects play into the new class, and there’s a link to it later in this blog post too.

    Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

    Drawing a spooky barn

    This is a “simpler” complex building  – I wanted to show how the perspective works on a building that isn’t just a “block.”

    In the new class we go through this spooky barn project a little slower and more indepth, though I think you could certainly give this project a try from the public video 🙂

    Drawing a spooky complex “mansion”

    I’m not 100% positive this didn’t escape being a home for ghosties and stray into being a village…but it was where it started, so I went with it! 

    The new class has footage of how I made the pencil drawing first, since there was no room for it on YT – and then more on the inking. Including over an hour of the realtime inking!

    Spooky Mansions Wash & Ink class

    This Spooky Mansion class is a little different than some others; I almost included just the one project in the image below, but then decided to include the extended teaching about the barn, then for the last lesson the crazy huge drawing and some more thoughts on approaching perspective. I really hope to make it something that doesn’t melt people’s brains – it’s empowering once you get your feet under you! 

    Supplies

    Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art