Digital Tracing Paper

My dad taught me the usefulness of tracing paper in composition at an early age. Draw each of your elements on a pieces of paper and move them around until a pleasing composition happens. Painter X can do this stage perfectly and with greater freedom. The above image has the girl on one layer, the hawk on another, and the rough sketch of a castle on the bottom layer. I could have left them all as rough sketches but I was tempted to render them and combine the layout stage and the charcoal value stage. I think it works well. All I have to do now is print it out and pin it beside my easel. I can even print multiples of this so I can work up a few color studies by painting right on top of it (mount the paper to foam-core and hit it with a layer of workable fixatif first, tho). If you look at the hawks legs, you can see they are all wrong. Changing those would be frustrating with tissue paper but I can now select the legs and rotate/distort them into a correct position... something tracing paper just can't do!

Another benefit of using Painter X at the layout stage is the Divine Proportion and Layout Grid tools. (menu: Window>Show Divine Proportion and Show Layout Grid.)

I situate the divine proportion on my canvas and it helps me imagine a layout (click to enlarge image below):

Sketch using the Divine Proportion overlay tool in Painter X

I also use the Layout Grid to help divide my canvas into thirds (rule of thirds):

Sketch divided into thirds.

All of this is incredibly freeing. I hope everyone who can will try this out. (Note that the divine proportion grid and the rule of thirds grid can be done without the computer's help)

Riverside Metropolitan Museum

North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) watercolor pencils on paper

A trip to the museum is always a fun time for a sketcher. A bone-lover like me can find lots of good sketching fodder as almost every display has a bone or two. Skeletons have such grand and sweeping lines and some have a wonderful patina that it's just a joy to let loose and draw them.

Thanks to James Gurney, I've begun sketching with watercolor pencils... and after a small learning curve, I love them. They're no mess, easy to pack around and are museum-friendly. I sketch lightly with the umber then use a brush pen filled with water to blend it all (a cheap little brush with a water reservoir..you just squeeze it for a wet brush and you're off to the races). A bit of ochre and blue and you've got all you need for some great studies. Finishing contrast was done with a smidgen of black (but beware..a little goes a long way and you're probably better off just leaving it as pencil and not hitting it with water).

I'm doing this beaver skull and I notice someone beside me watching. It's one of the museum curators and we start talking about art and how all good fantasy art has it's roots in the natural sciences. We're having a good time geeking out on the museum displays and she mentions a John Muir event the museum will be holding and asks if I'd like to be a part of it. No brainer...I said yes. I'm not sure in what capacity she'd like me to participate, but for a John Muir event, I'll sweep the floor and be happy.

The curator's name is Teresa Woodard and she's the curator of education at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum. It's a small museum with an incredible diversity of quality displays from old spirit jars, to a good natural history section to a great Civil War, WW1 and WW2 section. They also have a wonderful exhibit of native indian artifacts and lifestyle information. Teresa also introduced me to the museum's curator of natural history, James Bryant. Both of them were wonderful, friendly and seemed excited about their museum. I enjoyed my time there immensely. One great perk came from James, who offered me access to his natural history collection that he has in the back. Lots of great skeletons, wings and other odd assortment of specimens that are a treasure-trove for artists. This goes to show you: be friendly with your local museum!

Here are some other sketches I did while there. All of these sketches are just that; sketches. Color and shape studies and just plain drawing for the fun of it.

Desert Iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis) watercolor pencils on paper

Kit Fox (Vulpes macrotis) watercolor pencils on paper

I have to wonder at the taxidermy on the kit fox. The eyes were a bright orange and I'm not so sure that's realistic, but it was an interesting look nonetheless.

Bullock's Oriole ? (Icterus Bullockii) watercolor pencils on paper

I don't remember if this was, in fact, a Bullock's Oriole. After a quick consult with Dr. Google, I think this is correct. If not, don't shoot me; I just wanted to sketch it for the color!

Trains and more trains

Trains, trains trains!!

2011 was not fun. Mid December I found out I needed a somewhat major surgery to my skull and sinuses and that pretty much took up all my time. January rolled around and I had the surgery. All went well except the swelling prevented my eyes from focusing on detail-work. That meant no artwork.

Fast-forward to March and my eyes have healed enough to allow me to paint again. Here's a long-overdue update on the train painting. I'll post all the process shots so far. Right now it's done but for the highlights and some details. And the type. Did I mention the type? I have a quote to paint under the train. Hand-painted lettering. Fun. Reminds me of the stuff I did back in the 80s, but that's another post for another time.

Process shots are below:

Pencil sketch with rough value placement

Underpainting with warm colors to help establish my focus.
The cooler blues will recede.

Background is done and train is started.

Almost done. Strangely, all that needs doing here is to
eliminate some details.

Keep in mind that the last one hasn't been sprayed with anything yet, so the areas that were painted with more linseed oil on the brush are darker than the rest. Also, the different mixtures of black affect the gloss. After I hit it with a final coat of varnish, it will even out.