Long Shadows

9/5/12 Pitt Big Brush Markers, Moleskine sketchbook

Authors and instructors of drawing often advise beginners to stick with monochrome drawing media and avoid color, which can distract one from learning to understand values – the lights and darks in a subject. Intellectually, I understand this advice, but I’m such a color junkie that I usually can’t resist adding color. My color habit also makes me want all the available colors in, say, a type of marker.

 

Lately, though, I’ve been having fun experimenting with markers as a sketching medium more than as a coloring agent. I started out using markers as a way to distill a complex or vast scene. Now I am also using them to help me study values. I’ve been forcing myself to select only a few to take with me at a time, even if I own a huge palette. The limited palette enables me to see and study lights and darks better. And the variable-tipped markers – my favorite water-soluble Japanese brush markers as well as non-water-soluble Pitt Artist Pens Big Brush Markers – make me focus on the large shapes rather than details.

 

Standing on our southern-facing sundeck, I saw a utility pole and our neighbors’ trees casting interesting shadows in the early morning sunlight.

9/5/12 Pitt Big Brush Markers

9/5/12 Pitt Big Brush Markers