A return to watercolours

The last assignment of the course was, in fact, two finished landscape paintings. For my second one I took the leap from oils to watercolours, and indeed, in the beginning, it was painfully clear I had not used the techniques in a year. I quickly remembered, and from then on it was easier.
I chose for my subject a photo of my beloved island Gotland, the east coast, last winter, which was a very snowy one. The light in the sky was a true challenge to capture, and however well or else that I succeeded, it does not transfer at all to a digital photo and then a computer screen. This is true for most drawings and watercolours anyway, but it is worth mentioning every time.
I used watercolours and some white gouache, which at first looked far too bright but after some drybrushing (this may be the first time I have thanked myself for using paper with a pressed grain in it, I generally dislike it and prefer flat paper) worked out better than I had anticipated. I chose an A3 size of paper (oddly enough, watercolour pads generally come in the A*-sizes) that, I think, has been cold-pressed. The painting took a few days, with some pauses to allow the paint to dry, and was mostly painted with a round sable brush of fairly large size. I began by sketching the outlines of things with an HB or 2B pencil.
The clouds were by far the most fun to paint, and possibly the most difficult and least successful. I am not certain. The light source, that is, the sun, was behind the clouds, and the light didn't at all fall on the clouds like it normally does. Low hanging sun means a very different light. There are, in fact, no easter eggs or anything in this picture. It didn't need it.
All in all, returning to watercolours was pure joy, and I look forward to doing more in this medium.

Pictures from my application

In a small flash of inspiration, today I would like to bring to you the pictures I chose to use for my application to the course! I am proud of all four of them, despite some being not the best in pure technical terms. Making some sort of transition of one of my drawings to the computer screen is as always very nearly impossible - scanners and I have never been on speaking terms, I don't know why, and taking a photo never really conveys the full amount of detail. At least, not with the camera I've got!
So here we go. The first picture is an old one; in fact, it was drawn in 2008, I think, in springtime. As so often, my linework with the pencil is thin and delicate. I drew this mostly with a... I believe it is called a "propelling pencil"? The hardness was HB. The pictures shows one of my own dreamed-up fantasy creatures, bark-skinned and twig-haired, talking to an elf in a pair of old jeans. There's a tiny owl and a small fox hidden away, though they do steal some of the viewer's attention; and also some kind of fairy lights. This one took a while to draw, and I worked on it in several sittings. It is a pity all the detail disappears in the transition to photo.
Next, we have another one of my portraits! This being the probably third or fourth that I ever dared show. Unfortunately the angle makes it look a bit odd but oh well. As you can see, my trusty Stabilo Woody crayon has done its work well here. Portrayed is a friend, Johan. The picture is very yellow, but I assure you the paper is white in real life. I originally had some trouble with his beard and some of the lines around his mouth, but then I asked him to smile, and suddenly I could see a lot better, where they were. The crayon is a somewhat blunt instrument, but it certainly covers a lot and is quicker and more efficient than, say, pencils.
Third is a finished watercolour of a meeting on a frozen lake. This was a Yule gift for a friend. I used photo reference for the nature, but freehanded the fox and the skiing little fellow that he is so curious about. I used watercolours, working mostly wet-on-dry, and finished with some white acrylics or gouache. It took an unknown amount of hours, but I remember being surprised at its taking such a relatively short time.
Fourth is a piece that is rather special to me. It is a work in progress, but I am proud of it regardless. With the help of some photo reference for the wood itself, the rest has been painted as I saw fit. A dancing Lady of the Forest, a flute-playing Lord, stick-and-twig-men, little foxes (there can never be too many foxes) and even a more current-day take on fairies. This was a real joy to paint, and a relief as well. I learned a lot about the medium itself, even while painting, and how I wished to use it. Some cue and inspiration I took from Charles Vess, and also a few tips on technique, that were most useful. In this picture it is evident some of my own personal "main points of interest" in art are, I would say. I hope to revisit this during this summer, to try and finish it. Also, I have learned a lot of colour theory which will hopefully help me avoid some of the pitfalls I was well underway of making with this one.

I hope you have enjoyed this little indulgence! For now, the main art course is over, but I shall continue painting through the summer and, hopefully, have something to show you all every now and then.

Two projects after my own ideas

The task was to paint two paintings; with subject and tools of your own choice. Still not having access to my oils, I went for acrylics again, and started out with a canvas board of the size F2. I had a vague idea for what I wanted to do, and it boiled down to what you can see on the right. I looked for a nice photo of a bus stop, and it had to be in Edinburgh. Eventually, I found one on the Lothian Buses website, I think, or somewhere similar, and it fit what I wanted to do. Originally I was going to have the girl stand up, leaning on the signpost, but that would have disturbed the picture rather than add to it. Having her sit down, and on a big old trunk, made it more coherent. You can still see the things that make the picture just that degree of odd: her satyr legs and horns. I used acrylics, and after my first bout with the picture I wasn't too happy with it. But then I came to an important realisation: I didn't NEED it to look perfect right away. I was going to come back to it and work on it again and again, and after many times and many hours, it would look better. That was a very important piece of insight.

I worked with flat brushes a lot for the larger areas, but then went over to smaller, round brushes, with rather long hairs. I found some incredibly cheap and sturdy little brushes at an art shop, that work perfectly well for how I treat them and use them. The trees to the right of Waverley Bridge (which connects Old Town and New Town in Edinburgh, and is the place where I first arrived to, by, incidentally, bus) were almost stippled, and I had a hard time at first finding the right balance between photo reference, suitability for the overall picture and what colours would actually look good. The puddles of water were something I fretted about, as I couldn't seem to do them justice, but they are done well enough, I suppose. I did try to make the painting tell a bit of a story, though you can't see her facial expression very well from the photo. Nor are the colours as nice as they are in real life but that is all right. That's a greater issue with my next picture than with this one. I call it "Waiting for the bus" by the way, and it's my first properly "urban fantasy" painting, I guess. Next time I decide to go for these tiny detials, however, it'll be a no-grain paper for me, or oils. I might also work on this more in the future, but we'll see. I started by sketching with pencils, and then work from larger areas to small detail.

Here we have the picture that came into my mind, and I couldn't wait to paint it. It's acrylics on a 24 by 32 cm paper from a Canson cold pressed, four side glued block for acrylics. I started out by grabbing a round, thin brush and a piece of Process Blue (cyan), to quickly sketch the outline of the bird. It's a phoenix, known as Fushichou 不死鳥 in Japanese (the signs mean respecitely "un-, non-", "death, dying" and "bird"), and it was lovely to go haywire with colours, and to make use of the great delight I take in painting fire and all variants of it. Fire, you see, needs some study to be able to paint it properly. Here, I have used both the "real" way that fire is built, and the "perceived" way. In the very inner core, some white that is almost blue, and then, darker as we go further away from the source of the flame. Yet it seems sometimes that it is the very outer parts that are the brightest, and indeed, in some cases, flame does go from bright, not as bright, dark and then brighter again, before the air takes over. The picture is life and motion, is rebirth and is a riot of colours. Once I had finished the bird itself, I knew I needed to bravely venture into the realms of background and so I did. With a bit of some blue-tinged green, I started out from black and then went head to toe with the fact that I'd painted real pretty wings... and that I'd have to try and keep the flamey aspects of them. Drybrush, an old friend of miniature painters worldwide, became part of the solution, and then I just added more and more green, and diluted it with water until the very core, which is pure Titanium White. Some parts are better blended than others but all in all it was a very good result, compared to expectations.

It is very difficult to capture this in a photo, but I went off to my figure case and brought out Games Workshop's Shining Gold and Burnished Gold. Adding a dash of these metallic paints to some parts gave the picture the finishing touch I wanted. It brings it to life in a whole different way. I think I missed going over the detail shot in Photoshop however, but oh well, there you go. I forgot to sign the pictures too, before I brought out the camera.
I also, incidentally, used the colour Red Gore from the GW range, as it is an old-time favourite anyway, and I simply didn't manage to get the right red, when I tried blending colours. Those colours come in small pots, and are acrylics too. In the very darkest recesses of its wings, I used black with some Red Gore in it, and the loose flames emanating from the wings are painted with Cadmium Yellow Lemon or somesuch over Process Yellow, with a dash of white in some.
I am very, very happy with this picture. I learned a lot from making it. The joyous expression in the phoenix's face, the swirly feeling of movement, the composition, the balance between colours and lines and details; yes, I can safely say I am very proud.

As per usual these days, I was listening to Harry Potter audiobooks while painting. For these two, I had reached "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" which, to my immense happiness, proved to be as good as I remembered it - not as good as my favourites of the series, but so very much better than the poor movie. And Fawkes, Albus Dumbledore's phoenix, makes an appearance in it.

That will be enough rambling from me. I hope you enjoy these my latest projects, and I am also proud to say that I feel confident enough now to take on some kind of commissions. As of yet, payments for them are not standardised but will be dealt with on a case-to-case basis. I hope that what I have posted here so far shows some extent of my versatility. I enjoy painting thoroughly, whether it flows easy or presents me with tricksy obstacles.

Drawings, with pencil and ink

The next assignment for the art course was drawing. Drawing with pencils, and drawing with something else - "experiment!" they encouraged us. So... I did. This is the medium I've been using the longest, and you can see the progress throughout the many varying drawing pads I've been using. But there are certain things that show it's an "Ellie". First out, a recent favourite of mine - drawing portraits! It's challenging and fun! The first I dared show anyone, I drew just earlier this winter. This, however,
is a portrait of Erik, reading the excellent book "Tigana" by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's made mainly with a 2B pencil, but 4B and 6B played important parts in making the darker parts, well, darker. Such as the hair. I used a stompf to good effect, too, but I think I might go back and revise a few parts. The stubble on the chin wouldn't look too bad being a bit darker. All in all, however, I'm happy with this. It took a good hour... two hours? I have no idea. I just go into mushin/munen-mode and come out afterwards. (That means, no-mind). I do admit I didn't care too much about the top of his shirt, or his necklace... To add too much detail would have drawn attention away from the main thing here. (That's as good an excuse as any!) I wish the light sources would have been a bit more interesting, as it was, I had a window from sort of behind-beside his head, and then a lamp from behind me. Would have liked one from above, to create more interesting shadows in the face, and show off the cheekbones a bit more. I did have to correct his head pose a few times; this is, I guess, one of the reasons why his lips and nose look a bit small and pointed, I didn't get the exact same angle every time I did.

For the next picture I figured I'd give myself a challenge, again. I set up a nice little still life, with a teacup, a character sheet from an RPG and some dice. And a pen.
And it turned out just as drab, boring and wonky as could probably be expected. So my eye caught a kimono on a hanger on a wall, and I figured... this could work. I started out drawing the first lines for it with my 2B pencil, and marking in some shadows. Next step was to pick up my Japanese calligraphy brush - not a proper brush, where I make the ink myself, unfortunately, but a ready-made one, with ink in the pen shaft. The brush was fairly dry, and I kept it that way, to have an easier time making softer shadows. There was no way I could properly capture the wonderful interwoven pattern in the dark-blue kimono fabric, but the obi decoration was far easier! I thoroughly liked working with the ink, and added a bit of my trusty, wonderful Stabilo Woody crayon/pencil. Mixing mediums is fun, even if it's not that apparent here. Also, I think that if I went completely to scale with things, there'd be nothing more than the kimono in this picture... so I shrank the distances to the doorways and the odd fan-thing above. Made it more interesting.
The walls are really a disgusting terracotta colour which I DETEST and cannot understand why everyone had to furnish their poor living rooms with, but there you are, and those living in said apartment, aren't really going to change it either. After all, painting walls is not half as fun as painting pictures, and it's a big bother too. No, causing your walls to have that terracotta colour is a lesser crime against humankind, I'd say. One it DOESN'T deserve.

The paper on which these were drawn was that old hate-friend of mine, an A4-sized one. The drawing pad is called "Teckning" which means "Drawing", and it's 40 pieces of paper, 140 grams heavy. Despite being a rather bleached white, it's supposed to be environmental friendly. My pencils are Derwent Graphic pencils, and, as you've guessed by now, I mostly use 2B. I started doing this after I read something about using that hardness for pre-watercolour drawings, and then heard John Howe (of Lord of the Rings drawing fame) say, during a highly amusing talk which I'm sad you miss out on but I cannot remember the url, that he'd recently upgraded from 2B to 4B. And I really like it. I also use a kneadable eraser, it's very useful, and of course an ordinary one as well. I am using a fairly small stompf, but it's much easier to get the control over smudges that I want, than with fingers alone.

I have, of course, drawn several more things. I might show them off, in particular, one or two profile drawings in pencil and with the Woody crayon. Also, I guess I should show you, how a table might look, after I'm done with a painting.