London is my BF

Now that I'm back, it's time to take the London blog to the next level and start adding some art.

Pen & Ink Sketch fountain pen with Noodler's Lexington Gray ink, Cotman watercolours in Artists Loft sketchbook.

drive by sketches, 1

So I haven't posted for a month. This doesn't mean I haven't been drawing, just that I haven't been drawing for myself. I was getting a little frustrated, being busy with the new job and one or two projects that aren't going quite the way I wanted them to. And then I found this:

An Illustrated Journey: Inspiration from the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers. This is a sequel to An Illustrated Life, a book of artists' journals, and I really wanted that...before I saw this.

I borrowed the book and have been reading through it the way I usually don't with these books. When I own them, I reach for them casually, flipping around pages, browsing and stopping wherever I want, hunting out favourite artists and ignoring others. I am going through this one like a proper book, reading from beginning to end, discovering artists and styles one by one.

I love travel journals and always wanted to do one, but have never had the time while I was travelling. Italy, Singapore, New York, all failures; I was enjoying myself too much rushing around to sit in one space and patiently commit it to memory. Looking at this set something loose in my resolve; I am now living in one of the most beautiful and famous cities in the world and not drawing any piece of it. In the end the frustration was too much. If the only travelling I do now is on my bus ride, then I will draw my bus ride.

So here it is: day 1 of the Drive By sketches. Begun on my best friend's birthday! Copic .01 micro liner in a Scout Books pocket notebook with a lemur on the cover, by artist Meg Hunt. I'll scan it for the next post.

page a day: villa

Pen and ink wash is both an exercise in completion and in restraint. You have to be careful about what you end up emphasising. In my mind the water was the focus of this picture, but my contrast control needs some work. Also I didn't use rulers or vanishing points, and I only started using pencil a third of the way through. It shows.

My advice? Unless you are an architect and can do this in your sleep, pencil your damn architecture in first. Even when using a reference.

page a day: water, water everywhere

I have a new dip pen! It was super cheap and it's very good with Noodler's Eternal Luxury Blue. Have some water gardens and a Roman bath to celebrate.

I am trying to keep my hand in with dip pens as the Book is entirely done in pen & ink with some washes, and I'm planning to make some comics in the same way. It's a good thing I'm moving back to where I can get heavy cartridge paper with relative ease again; it seems to be the best fit for this technique.

page a day: calligraphy

Playing with Speedball nibs and pen ink. C0 & C4 broad tips, B5 round, orange Calligrapher's that I got in a Kate's Paperie warehouse sale and Noodler's Eternal Blue. I used a syringe to mix them on the second page and splashed them around a bit.

My work seems really halfhearted lately. I will step things up in coming weeks.

page a day: hysterical romance, in colour

Prang watercolours, Quink and Waterman inks, and blue pencil.

page a day: hysterical romance

See last post.

page a day: merboy and magician

So I've been writing a Little Mermaid retelling in which the mermaid is male, the Sea Witch is also male (and in love with him) and instead of being set in pseudo-medieval England, it's set in pseudo-medieval Moorish Spain.

Anyway, have some wistful angst and pretty boys in flowy robes. Pentel brush pen and Caran D'Ache aquarelle pencils.

page a day: pen tests

(Last entry blurred for personal details. Fun fact: it was written in my mutant Futhark before I blurred it.  If you grew up with a guardian who reads your journals, you'd be paranoid too.)

Main conclusion: Hunt and Speedball nibs = decent; Joseph Gillott = horrible. Except for #303. Don't do it.

Also, I redid the mint tea illustration:

That's better, I think. I've also changed my settings to reflect the proper times of posting, and to enable anon comments (which I'd forgotten I'd disabled--sorry!)

page a day: the (human) stain

 

I'd wanted to experiment with this method of colouring for a while but I didn't get a chance to do the blotchy parts till today. It's pretty hard to control, and I didn't at all expect the way the shellac-infused inks interacted with the water-based ones (see: ugly spots in top illustration). 

I quite like the way the latter two illustrations look, but it still seems lazy to me. This could be my weak Photoshop skills, too. Well, back to work.

page a day: reverse storyboarding

Screen composition of a few films on TV today: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Joy Luck Club, Notting Hill, Captain America.

Surprisingly (or not, for those of us who love Asian cinema) The Joy Luck Club turned out the most visually interesting. There are a lot of frames centered round negative space: the empty chair where a deceased parent used to sit; the courtyard gap between a woman and her estranged family; the wall between two windows, through which we glimpse a face.

The pauses also suggest time: the momentary distance separating a man and woman hints at what is about to happen between them.

In my experience Asian cinema (animated or live-action) focuses just as much on the pause as the action; I'd like to look into that further, which is an academic way of saying I want to watch more Asian film.

page a day: let there be light

Mail-order catalogues: the perpetual answer to the question 'What am I going to draw today?'

Visconti ink, Cretacolor aquarelle pencils.

page a day: storytelling

P. Craig Russell shows you how to tell a story.

Comic book pages taken from Michael Moorcock's Elric: Stormbringer.

page a day: dance

Um, it's still Wednesday if I haven't gone to bed.

Here is a fanart of my biggest weakness: comics!

It just occurred to me that Wonder Woman and Captain America would make the perfect couple. Make it happen, Marvel/DC!

page a day: coffee

I love every way of brewing coffee: single filter, Mr Coffee, capsule, espresso drip--but siphon coffee turns me into a little kid at the Exploratorium, watching science turn a morning essential into an alchemical ceremony. And delicious coffee, of course.

Pentel brush pen, fountain pen with Noodler's ink.

Update on the book project: I spent today drawing things. Spanish combs, flip-flops, wooden slippers, headbands. I love it!

page a day: fairy tales