December 2015

Last week I bought an A4 pad of Canson Illustration 250gsm paper.  It’s packaging is targeted towards comic artists and illustrators. I found it quite nice to draw on, smooth and strong with a faint texture that catches and holds wet media. This piece is a mix of black and blue ink and ink washes, using crow quill pen and a couple of different brushes, mainly a great little thin sable hair brush that seems to be able to do most things. I went quite dark in this one to avoid the  washing out effect of the scanner, and kept the lines quite simple and gestural. Going for speed and trying not to be precious here, which seems to be a major focus at the moment. Must be the deadline on my Doctorate looming! This page took between two and three hours from start to finish, which took place in a few stints over two days. I’m happy with the second strip, middle panel, where some areas I left white on the characters gave a nice dappled light effect I can use in future.

Here I’m having a go at mixing blue and black ink washes over brush pen. I love how the ink washes move around and form their own hierarchy of depth and space. This was done extremely quickly, maybe only a couple of hours from start to finish. Which is probably quite obvious looking at the quality of line!

For these diary comics I wanted to get back to paint. I’ve been working quite a bit with a focus on line-work and felt the urge to move colour around, allowing a bit of unpredictability to sneak in. After putting down some quick half-hearted sketches that felt like more of the same (below), I had the idea to create a triptych and get a bit more practice in environment painting. I started with a quick sketch to get an idea of shot and colours (also below),  then took photo reference from these angles to help with accuracy (and to save time!)

This took about twenty minutes to get in the loose linework, and painting took place over a few small sittings, allowing paint to dry in between each before putting in another layer, totalling around two hours. The emphasis was on splashing paint down roughly and hoping for the best, trusting the watercolours to do their own thing. Below, the mixing plate I used, emphasising the ability of watercolour to create beautiful patterns and unexpected harmonies in the hands of even the most unartistic brutes!

I didn’t have photo reference for the colours of the sunsets, relying on memory instead. Rain effects were created by laying down masking fluid before the painting began, with masking fluid also used for parts of the cottage and surfaces of wood fencing etc. The piece as it is on paper is still only half-finished, knowing as I did that I wanted the freedom of digital letting and layout to finish the piece.

And here it is. I think the digital side of things took as long as the actual painting. Completed as it was at A4 size I think there is plenty of room for improvement, and perhaps next time an A3 size piece will give me a little more freedom to get in with more detail. Greater planning of colour will help create a more holistic piece. My fave bits are the heavy night sky in the middle panel, and the loose gestural approach to the cottage.