First Sketches of the Year

 I decided to challenge myself to spend more time in my sketchbook this year, here are my first sketches of the year.

This pen and ink sketch is based on a photo I took somewhere in rural Utah, I don't remember quite where. I used a fine liner pen, a brush pen and diluted ink in a water brush.

Sketch No 2 is based on a photo I took in Hanksville, Utah of an abandoned and partially disassembled vintage Ford pickup.  I used a brown ink applied with a dip pen and a brush.

There was plenty of brown ink left in the palette so I used it for sketch no 3 as well which is based on a photo I took while hiking in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.

I used the dip pen and brush again but with black water soluble ink this time referencing a photo I took in rural Fountain Green Utah.

Car Show Season, Finally!

 It's been a long winter, still snowing up to less than a week ago, the week when car show season usually starts.  Of course snow fall cancels car shows so there were no shows last week.  As bad as the snow was early last week it abruptly stopped and the temperatures climbed 30 degrees in just a couple days.  Monday, the day after Easter the sun was out and we had the highest temperatures of the year so far, it hit as high as 77 degrees.  This has been quite a shock to the system, wearing a heavy coat to shorts and short sleeves in just a few days, I won't complain though because I have been anxiously waiting for spring and to finally go to car shows.  

The first car show I went to was just an evening cruise night on Monday but it's obvious everybody else was anxious for the car show season to finally start as well since the parking lot couldn't hold all of the cars that showed up which gave me plenty of sketching opportunities. 

The first sketch was of a 1930 Model A Ford hot rod pickup, old school style without fenders with big and little skinny bias ply tires, my favorite.  I used a Tombow Fude pen and watercolor.

I was able to do the next sketch without moving, a 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner classic muscle car.

The last one was a highly customized 1937 Ford Phaeton. Unfortunately I didn't capture the sweeping shape of this unique car very well.

It was a little windy and I forgot to bring a couple binder clips with me which meant I had to keep one hand holding the sketchbook at all times which limited the techniques I could use a bit. I'm not sure it is worth bringing all that watercolor gear with me anyway, just complicates things and really this is more about drawing practice, I'm not making masterpieces here.  I'm leaning towards just taking pens and grayscale markers to future shows.

Sketchbook Wednesday #6 - Water Soluble Graphite

This week I decided to try another new to me medium, water soluble graphite, in the form of Derwent Sketching pencils. I picked a rural scene featuring an old granary with a field of grass in front of it and a background full of trees, I don't remember exactly which rural Utah town I took the reference photo in.

The Derwent pencils come in three grades, light wash, medium wash and dark wash.  I started by sketching the composition with the light wash pencil and added some strokes for tone.

Then I applied water with a large round brush to basically "block in" the composition

So, when is a drawing not a drawing?  Or is this still a drawing even though it's become a wet medium now?  Can you paint with graphite?  Based on the definitions that I understand this basically becomes a painting once you use water to turn the graphite strokes into areas of tone, but maybe not, I don't know, I'll let you decide.

Continuing on I basically just did the same thing two more times, first with the medium wash pencil putting in darker tones and more detail and then with the dark wash pencil adding in the final details.  

I have discovered three significant advantages to using water soluble graphite pencils over regular pencils.  First, it's faster because larger areas are covered far more quickly.  Second, it's easier to get dark darks, the reason being that the wash easily fills in the valleys in the texture of the paper.  Third, applying washes kills the shine you normally get with graphite.  I don't know if this is a feature only of the Derwent pencils since I've seen other artists complain of the graphite shine using other soluble materials. At least in my experiment with the Derwent Sketching pencils the shine is almost entirely gone once the water dries.

Sketchbook Wednesday #5 - Derwent Drawing Pencils

 Something different this week.  Not only am I sharing a sketch of a different subject in a different medium but the format of this post is a bit instructional.

I decided to try something different this week and made a sketch of a landscape and using Derwent Drawing Pencils instead of my usual pens, markers and/or watercolor cars and trucks. Derwent drawings pencils are similar to colored pencils but there are a couple subtle yet important differences in their properties which I'll cover later.

This is the finished sketch, a nature landscape featuring a tree, bushes and a grassy field foreground.  As you can see I used only warm tones, I feel warm tones work best for landscapes, except maybe for a winter scene of course.  All of the colors available in the Drawing Pencil range are rather subdued.  I used only four pencils for this sketch, Mars Orange, Sanguine Red, Terracotta and Sepia Red. If I wanted to broaden the value range I'd use Brown or Yellow Ochre for brighter/lighter lights and Chocolate for deeper darks.

To apply the color in the foliage I used circular strokes with the pencil at a low angle as shown above.

First I apply a layer of Orange Mars

Next I applied some Sanguine Red to the darker areas.

Next came Terracotta for some even darker areas.

And finally for the darkest darks I applied Sepia Red.

And here's the first major difference between Derwent Drawing Pencils and regular colored pencils.  The Derwent pencils can be blended using a dry blending stump which is what I have done here.  Most colored pencils require some kind of solvent, heat or a special blending pencil to make them blend.  Admittedly the blending isn't very thorough but part of that is due to the heavily textured paper I'm using which in my opinion enhances the image in this case.

The other property of the Derwent pencils that differs from traditional colored pencils is that they can be erased...sort of. The Derwent pencil marks can be significantly lightened using a stiff eraser, you won't get all the way back to the white of the paper but you'll get much lighter than you can with normal colored pencils.  I like to use a Paper Mate "Tuff Stuff" eraser as shown in the photo below with all of the items I used to make this sketch.

So, in conclusion, I enjoyed using the Derwent Drawing Pencils to make this sketch and will definitely use them again. Next time I might try smoother paper and a Chocolate pencil for deeper darks.

Sketchbook Wednesday #4

 I've been busy lately, haven't been sketching every day but really that's no excuse. A sketch doesn't have to take long, even a ten minute sketch is worth doing if that's all the time you have. I did manage to get a couple of sketches done.

The first sketch was an experiment in using alcohol markers.  Previously I had only ever used Tombow ABT markers which are water based. From videos I've seen it seems there are primarily two advantages to alcohol markers, they blend more easily and you can apply acrylic paint pens on top since the acrylic paint pens won't activate the alcohol marker marks like they do to water based marker marks. Based on that info I decided I wanted to try them but not really being a marker guy I didn't want to spend nearly $6 each for Copics. Based on videos it appears Touchnew brand markers are comparable in performance and a lot cheaper so I tried to buy some, but I wasn't paying close attention and ended up with a set by Dabo Shobo. These markers didn't seem to blend well at all, also I didn't really like the chisel tip, I much prefer a brush tip. I also still struggled to get the acrylic paint pen to cover well.  Whether these issues are due to poor pen quality or my lack of skill with markers I can't really say since I have been unable to find a good review of these pens by someone with more experience.  The subject is a custom car circa 1950 Chevy old school taildragger style.

"Custom 1948 Ford"
Pen and watercolor, 6" X 11"
Click to purchase

The second sketch is a line and wash (watercolor) sketch of a 1948 Ford coupe also in a traditional taildragger style. I used watercolor instead of markers for coloring the body, something I'm a little more comfortable with and probably would be better for sketching live at car shows since you don't need a big case full of colors, instead a small palette can hold them all, (assuming you are competent at color mixing).  The line work was done with a Tombow soft tip Fudenosuke pen.  I love this little pen because it makes it easy to create loose thin and thick line work. I also used a couple Tombow ABT brush pens for some shading and color accents. I made this sketch in a book with tear out perforations so I've decided to make it available for purchase, click on the image to go to the ebay listing.

Sketchbook Wednesday #3

 These week I'm sharing a couple pages out of my daily sketchbook.  I've been developing a habit of sketching first thing in the morning.  This week I decided to do multiple small sketches on each page based on photographs from a magazine consisting of custom cars and hot rods.  

These sketches are only for my own practice and to add to my visual library.  I start each sketch with a fine black pen with no lay-in, just straight to it.  I pick a shape, draw it and then start drawing and adjacent line or shape until I've sketched the whole car, then I shade the sketch using gray brush pens.

Playing with Paint Pens

 I've had a couple dozen or so Posca acrylic paint pens for a while now but only used them to embellish other art, recently I decided to use them as the primary medium in some sketches, below are a couple examples.

"Abandoned Chevy Dump Truck Sketch"
8x10, multimedia on paper
Click on image to purchase

I used acrylic inks to tone and texture 140 lb Arches hot press watercolor paper in a block before laying out and coloring with the paint pens. Since I have a limited range of colors I had to be a bit more creative with the color, which I kind of enjoy anyway since my objective is never to be realistic. I kept the strokes open for the same reason, I just like the energy squiggly, zig zaggy, open strokes give, this also serves to visually mix the colors a bit.  The subject is a 1946 Chevy dump truck from a reference photo I took at the Erickson Ranch in Wallsburg, Utah.

"Red Model T Ford Hot Rod Sketch"
8x10, multimedia on paper
Click on image to purchase

I used the same paper for this one but used watercolor and gouache for the toning and texturing. I went even more colorful and sketchy with this Model T Ford V8 equipped hot rod I photographed at a local car show.

Since making these sketches I've picked up a bunch more Posca paint pens, in fact I now own all of the regular colors, they were that fun to use.  I've also started a couple new sketches but on canvas paper toned with acrylic paint, hopefully I'll have those ready to blog about next week.

Sketchbook Wednesday #2

 I'm actually on time this week.  I have three new sketchbook sketches to share with you.

"Vintage Dodge Truck Sketch"
Available on Etsy

This sketch christened a whole new sketchbook that's made up of tan toned paper.  I used a Tombow Fude brush pen for the black and a Posca paint pen for the whites.  The subject is a 1946 Dodge flatbed farm truck that has seen better days.  The sheets are peforated in this sketchbook so I decided to make this sketch available to purchase, click on the image.

"Abandoned Cars and Trucks in a Row Sketch"

The second sketch uses the Tombow fude brush pen for the line work and Tombow gray brush pens for the toning. The subject is a line of abandoned cars and trucks in the grass.  I took the reference photo at the Erickson Ranch in Wallsburg, Utah.

"Custom 1940 Ford Pickup Sketch'

The last sketch is a custom 1940 Ford pickup from a photo I took at a car show.  I used the fude pen again for the line work but used color Tombow brush pens for the shading this time.

More Sketchiness

 More sketches from my multimedia studio sketchbook.

"Studio Sketchbook 1 Sketch 3"

I don't remember for sure where I took the reference photo but I beleive it was somewhere in Morgan County Utah, about as rural as it gets. It's an image that's always interested me and one I've sketched and drawn a couple times.  I guess what's so interesting is that in spite of the derelict appearance of this barn or shed with the dying tree in front of it, even blocking part of the opening it is still in use and full of hay bales. Like the first two sketches and next three I started with charcoal then applied watercolor washes with a simple, three color palette of muted colors and then finished off with soft pastel to add more texture, detail and color.

"Studio Sketchbook 1 Sketch 4"

Another derelict barn, this one larger and apparently abandoned altogether or maybe just used to store scrap wood in that section on the left. The reference photo was taken in the small rural town of Midway, Utah on a crisp autumn day. Unfortunately Midway isn't quite so rural anymore, newer developments around it have a distinctly upper-middle class suburban feel.

"Studio Sketchbook 1 Sketch 5"

I don't remember where I took the reference photo but it was pretty much just like this, an antique Case farm tractor sitting abandoned near the road in a large open area in rural Utah.

"Studio Sketchbook 1 Sketch 6"

I believe I took the reference photo for this somewhere in Sanpete County, a very agricultural rural county in west/central Utah.  This field appeared to be an abandoned farm field left to return to nature.  

Another Sketchbook is Born

 Another new thing I decided to try recently is to keep a painting sketchbook.  Yes, paintings can also be sketches. There's definitely an advantage to painting in a sketchbook but it's something I've never done until now. What's the advantage? Just like sketching with drawing mediums in a sketchbook, paintings in a sketchbook are not precious like a painting on canvas can be.  Since artwork created in a sketchbook isn't so precious the artist feels more free to experiment. A failed painting on paper in a sketchbook is less painful than a failed painting at the easel, but even more important, the artist is less likely to fiddle with a failing painting, wasting time trying to save something that maybe shouldn't be saved. An artist is more likely to let a failed idea go when it's on paper.  So, the bottom line is that a sketchbook is for experimenting, for testing new ideas before attempting them on a more permanent substrate.  Also sketches are usually smaller and take less time, another feature that makes them less precious. 

All that said I did make three painting sketches that I think worked out pretty well. 

"Painting Sketchbook 1 Sketch 1"

I followed the same process with all three sketches. First I applied clear gesso to the paper, then sketched out the composition with charcoal.  Next I blocked in the composition with thinned acrylic paint, and followed that with a thicker layer, also applied with brushes. I then made more adjustments using brushes and then went over much of the painting with thick paint applied with knives.  Finally, I applied some marks using oil pastels to add detail and texture.  The scene above is a dirt road leading into Utah ranch land desert.

"Painting Sketchbook 1 Sketch 2"

This sketch is an autumn scene on a gloomy day with a dirt road rolling through farmland in the Ogden Valley in northern Utah.

"Painting Sketchbook 1 Sketch 3"

Another rural Utah landscape, this time in summer with a green farm field in the middle ground, barns, a silo and a granary on the horizon and the Wasatch Mountains in the background.

Getting Sketchy Again

 I've been really, really lax about my sketching practice for a while now, I've decided to get back into it and in a bigger way.

My primary sketching medium before was mostly line and wash or just pen, before then just graphite.  I've decided I'd like to move in a somewhat different direction yet still keep it simple.  I want my sketches to be more free, more loose, more suggestive and I figured charcoal is the place to start with that.  But what about color? That's usually where things get complicated and where it's easy to create a chaotic, disharmonious mess so again, I wanted to keep things simple.

My goal with this is also to come up with a simple, yet functional kit for plein air (outdoors on location) sketching.  While the photo shows my full watercolor palette I decided to try using only three colors to keep things also and maintain color harmony.  I used yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and paynes gray and just one brush, a large round. I used only one charcoal pencil and one piece of compressed charcoal. I also picked out a selection of lighter pastel pencils and hard pastels.  I knew I wouldn't use all of those colors but I wanted a selection to chose from. 

Studio Sketchbook 1 Sketch 1

I used a 9x12 Strathmore cold press watercolor sketchbook for my first.  The rough texture was a bit much, I'll probably use hot press or multimedia paper next time. I laid down all of the charcoal defining the entire composition making sure to work quickly and loosely.  Then I watered down the entire paper and applied loose and heavy washes of color.  After the paint had dried I went into it with the pastels to add brighter color and lighter areas but being mindful to not get too carried away and keep the colors harmonious.  The composition is straight from my imagination.

Studio Sketchbook 1 Sketch 2

I used the same process for this scene based on a photograph I took on the outside edges of the small rural Utah town of Fountain Green in Sanpete County.  This sketch will most likely soon will be used as a reference to make a painting.  Besides the good drawing practice that's another good use for a sketchbook, to test composition ideas for painting.

Now I need to start a plein air sketchbook and I'm also considering making a painting sketchbook, in which I'll actually paint with acrylics in the sketchbook, something I've never done before but after watching some YouTube videos I can see the value of doing that. Stay tuned!

Sketching for Sketching Sake

 No, I'm not advocating for mindless doodling, however sketching without a specific purpose other than experimenting, practicing or testing new compositions can be a very productive of an artist's time.  I decided to spend the last week just sketching in my sketchbooks rather than do any production art.   My first round of sketching was to just fill several pages with small sketches of hot rods based on photographs I've taken at car shows.  I went straight to pen, starting with one element of the car and sketching out from there.  Each small sketch took about five to eight minutes and I fit five to seven sketches on each 9x11 page. There was no rhyme or reason, no planned composition, just fit a few sketches on each page and overlapping doesn't matter.  This was good drawing practice.

Model T Ford Hot Rod Sketches

Model A Ford Hot Rod Sketches

1932 Ford Hot Rod Sketches

I decided to take two more pages from my 9x11 sketchbook for testing possible compositions for hot rod paintings using regular pens for lines and brush pens for shading.

1932 Ford Sedan Hot Rod Sketch

1934 Ford Hot Rod Sketch

I think next week I'll take a shot at that 1932 Ford hot rod painting.  

For the last sketch of the week I decided try a little experiment using a new brush pen I bought this week.  The pen is a Pentel Brush Sign Pen.  The brush is very pointy and fairly stiff and the pen is filled with water soluble ink and the ink is very black. It's possible to make very thin lines and strokes up to about 1/8" thick. Since the ink is water soluble it can be manipulated with water after it's put down and create washes of gray from the black lines, I used a water brush for this.

Abandoned GMC Truck Sketch

I can see real possibilities using these tools and techniques, I plan on spending some time attempting a more refined drawing (painting?) this week.

Bottom line, there are many ways in which a regular sketchbook sketching can be helpful in your art practice.

A Morning in the Mountains

 It's been a long time since I've visited the mountains, over a year I think, I decided it was about time to make another visit and I took my sketchbook.

I went up Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains. One of the nicest things about living in the Salt Lake Valley is the mountains are a short drive away no matter where you live in the valley. There's a downside however, it means these mountains are very heavily visited.  Really the only good time to go to the canyon is early in the morning on a weekday.  I left home shortly after 7:00 and arrived at the Mill B trailhead about 7:45 and already the parking lot was 3/4 full. I wasn't planning on hiking the trail, I just wanted to get up to an interesting section of the creek and sketch it.

I don't think you could call this a waterfall but rather just an especially fast and rocky section of the creek.  I decided to go with charcoal for my sketches today.  I used my Stonehenge sketchbook which turned out to be difficult to erase so my usual techniques didn't work as well.

After the creek sketch I decided to got to the top of the canyon and take a walk around Silver Lake. I got to the parking lot before 9:00 and there was plenty of parking and I saw few people on the trail.

I changed my process slightly for this sketch.  I started by applying a large amount of vine charcoal since it's easy to erase and then used an eraser to create the lighter areas and then went back in with compressed charcoal to reinforce the darks.

After finishing my walk around the lake I sat at a picnic table and sketched the bottom part of a large evergreen tree that was next to the trail and close to the picnic tables.  It was now after 10:00 and the parking lot was full and there was many more people, so take note, make sure you visit Silver Lake before 10:00 in the morning.

I don't know why I've stayed away from the mountains this year, there's just no excuse.  This was a very enjoyable morning, I need to make sure I make it up again at least a couple more times before the snow flies.  Here are a couple more photos for your viewing pleasure.