Sea Daydream: Process Part 3

Sea Daydream: Process Part 3 Paint! Last week I shared the evolution of the sketch for this piece in Process Part 2. Or start from the beginning and check out Process Part 1. This week we’re moving on to the paint phase. I usually do some value studies for...

DIY Ink Filled Brush-Pen and Lightfast Test

I enjoy using the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen but I wanted to have an ink brush that I could sketch with in a color other than black. I wanted to put ink in a Niji Waterbrush to make my own. What I wasn’t sure about was how much I...

Portrait Practice – Color Experiments

Colors used for this head study Perylene Black (Winsor & Newton) Yellow Ochre (Winsor & Newton) Permanent Yellow Light (Rembrandt) Permanent Red Medium (Rembrandt) Permanent Magenta (Winsor & Newton) Permanent Alizarin Crimson (Winsor & Newton) Untramarine Blue (Utrecht) The white was either Utrecht White, or Flemish White by Utrecht....

Head Study in Oil – Trying Out Colors

In an effort to see for myself what different colors and paints do and decide what I like, I’ve been experimenting. For this head study I tried Rembrandt Sepia, Gamblin Flake White Replacement, and Gamblin Chromatic Black. This combination also gave me a chance to concentrate on values (more...

Sketchbook Smear Relief and Some Doctor Who Fan Art

I wanted practice drawing people. What better way than to combine learning with fan art of Doctor Who? In the past when I’ve kept a sketch book the pencil would rub off on the adjacent page. This has always frustrated me. Capturing a likeness can be frustrating, why compound...

Portrait Study – Transfer the Drawing

This is a follow up from last week’s post about my portrait study using Russian Sauce. I went back in to the drawing with a fat tortillion and smoothed out the background. I’m liking it much better. Next I transferred the drawing to a prepared canvas panel. Materials Used...

Portrait Study – Russian Sauce

I teach a portrait class Tuesday evenings so when I’m not helping students, I’m helping myself by working on this head study. This was a great opportunity to experiment with Yarka Russian Sauce. What fun! I love the darks I’m getting. This all started with my interest in Valentin...

Experiment: Camera Lucida

So a couple guys did a Kickstarter. They created a modern version of the camera lucida: the NeoLucida. I was curious so I chipped in. Backstory David Hockney, in his book “Secret Knowledge,” proposed that many of the old masters used optics as they came available. This ruffled some...