My Mixed Media Eureka Moment

 

10/28/26 Caran d'Ache Neocolor II, Museum Aquarelle, Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pens (photo reference)

Perhaps my Suflave cocktail had something to do with it, but I had a “Eureka!” moment. 

Being indisposed for most of the day, I decided to use the opportunity for more mixed-media experiments. You may recall from a recent post that while I appreciate how Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pens can be efficient for putting in the darkest of dark values, I don’t care for the hard, indestructible edges that markers make. I still haven’t found a way to make a smooth transition between waterproof markers and water-soluble materials like pencils and crayons.

I made another try (top of post) paying greater attention to the marks I was making, like dotting the Indigo Pitt marker lightly against water-soluble materials to soften the edges. Although this was somewhat better, I still wasn’t satisfied. Waterproof markers and water-soluble materials just don’t mix, I muttered, gulping down my beverage of the day.

Then the Eureka moment occurred: Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Markers! While containing inks just as intense as waterproof Pitt markers (and in a matching color range), the Dürer markers are water-soluble. I have a wide selection of colors that I bought several years ago and messed around with for a bit, but I never got into them. I pulled them out for the next sketch.

10/28/26 Caran d'Ache Neocolor II, Museum Aquarelle, Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer Watercolor Markers (photo reference)

To make a direct comparison, I used the same reference photo as used when I talked about the benefits of Pitt markers in achieving darks (that sketch shown below). First I did most of the drawing with Caran d’Ache water-soluble pencils and crayons. I activated those parts first with a dry-ish waterbrush. Then for the darkest shadow areas, I used an Indanthrene Blue Dürer marker. This time, I used the blue marker in the background trees (which I avoided the first time because I didn’t want to lose the texture). As I did the first time, I used a magenta Dürer marker on the foreground bush. At this stage (I wish I’d remembered to photograph it), the Dürer markers had a similar pasted-on look as their waterproof brethren.

Finally, I used a dry-ish waterbrush gently and sparingly to soften the marker edges where they meet water-soluble materials. The difference is subtle, but I like the result much better. With all that gentle, fussy activation, some of the efficiency of using markers was lost. But I’m encouraged that I can definitely see on-location potential for this mixed-media combo.

10/26/26 This was the original experiment combining Pitt markers with water-soluble materials.

Eureka! Bartender, bring me another Suflave!

Whenever I’ve dabbled in mixed media in the past, I’ve had fun using a variety of materials together, but it often felt random – just throwing in this and that with no specific intention or purpose (other than maybe fun, which certainly isn’t a bad thing). What I prefer, though, is each medium having a purpose – speed, texture, color intensity, or whatever it does best – that makes it the right choice. I’m looking forward to putting this combo to work in the field.

Sadly, these insights came to me at the end of InkTober and just before Pencilvember, when I have committed to using no water-soluble materials at all! Well, there’s always mixed-media Mondays (that’s a thing, right? All I need is a hashtag).

Going Dark – and Darker

 

10/26/26 Cd'A Museum Aquarelle pencils, Neocolor II crayons and F-C Pitt Artist Brush Pens (photo reference)

With water-soluble pencils (and more recently crayons) as my primary color medium for many years now, I sometimes think I’ve gotten the darkest values dark enough while I’m on location. Then when I get home and put my sketchbook on the scanner, I realize that I could have pushed them even darker. The single biggest (and probably most important) lesson that markers have taught me this InkTober is that it never hurts (and often helps) for the darks to go even darker – and markers make that easier and faster than my usual water-soluble materials.

For this sketch, I used a photo reference so that I could focus on experimenting. First I used water-soluble pencils and crayons in my usual way. Then I leaned in hard with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pens for the darkest areas under and behind the foreground tree. I didn’t like the abrupt, hard edges of the marker against the softness of the other media, so I tried to fuzz the transitions with more pencil and crayon (with mixed results).

I wanted to retain the paper's tooth showing through as bits of reflected light,
so I used an Indigo Necolor II.

For the background trees (detail at left), I wanted to avoid the solidity of markers, so I used a crayon in the same color as the Indigo marker. Using markers for trees will probably never appeal to me because I’d lose the tiny sparkles of white from the paper’s tooth that impart the look of foliage reflecting light.

To check this out, for the reddish-orange foreground bushes (detail below), I used a dark magenta marker in the deepest shadow area. I couldn’t get rid of that pasted-on look, and I think it would have been better to stay with crayons only.

I’m looking forward to experimenting further – and very happy now that I took the plunge to devote InkTober to markers!

The dark magenta shadow looks pasted on.

Marker vs. Pencil: Japanese Maple

 

10/17/26 F-C Pitt Artist Brush Pens in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook
(photo reference)

If you look closely at the individual leaves of trees that are turning, you’ll see that most exhibit a gradient range of hues. With tiny Japanese maple leaves, the effect is intensified: As small as they are, each still shows a gradient at varying stages of change. From a distance, the visual effect is that the tree looks like a haze of hues: Optical color mixing at its best. It’s different from foliage consisting of much larger leaves, which tends to appear more like large masses of individual hues.

Dashing out for a quick walk and sketch before the predicted rain, I got caught in a shower. I didn’t sketch, but I couldn’t resist snapping a few photos to use later. (See end of post for some Japanese maples from my walking route. Neighborhood leaf peeping continues!).

I’ve always felt that colored pencils and especially watercolor pencils are among the best media to capture that haze of hues I’m talking about. I needed my InkTober sketch for the day, though, so I pulled out my daily-carry palette of Faber-Castell Pitt Brush Pens. It occurred to me that I had probably never used markers to try to capture the Japanese maple effect: It was an excellent opportunity for the challenge!

The result is above. To avoid the “heavy” look that markers can impart fairly quickly, I used the side of the brush nib to get a more pointillist effect.

10/17/26 Cd'A Museum Aquarelle watercolor pencils in
Hahnemuhle Akademie Aquarell sketchbook (photo reference)

That done, I couldn’t help myself: I got out my pre-InkTober daily-carry palette of watercolor pencils (mostly Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle) and used the same photo reference (at right).

With the help of toothy Hahnemühle paper and a relatively dry waterbrush, it was easy to get that haze of color that looks more “realistic” (and frankly, I do love that look). Although the brush marker version doesn’t capture the haze as well, I think it seems fresher and more animated. At least in this case, it surprises me that I prefer it!

What about you? Let me know your favorite media for capturing Japanese maples!

InkTober Check-in: Making Friends with Brush Markers

10/12/26 Wedgwood neighborhood. I stood near the middle of this quiet street
to sketch. Neighbors stood on their respective porches to have this conversation.

InkTober is half over, and I’m pleased and surprised to say that I’m enjoying using Staedtler Pigment Arts Brush Pens! As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve long been attracted to brush markers for their expediency and range of line widths, but I’ve never found a way to use them that suited my style or esthetic. I just don’t care for the marker-y look, which I obviously can’t avoid completely: Markers be markers. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from participating in InkTober each year, it’s that using a specific tool or medium daily for an extended time teaches me how I relate to it better than when I use it only sporadically – even if I think I don’t like it (that was my big takeaway years ago when I devoted the month to ballpoint pens). Because what makes me want to use an unfamiliar medium is finding an approach that feels like my own, and that takes committed time to practice.

I was thinking of doing a review of these Staedtler markers, which were new to me before InkTober, but I would need to use them longer to make a fair assessment. For example, after two weeks (and a couple of months for the black and gray ones), the tips are holding out OK under my heavy hand, but I don’t know how much longer that will be true. I also don’t know how long the ink will last.  

The Staedtler "Nature Colours" set

An interesting comparison would be with what I think are their primary competitor, Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pens. Both containing waterproof, transparent pigment inks, they seem close in features, yet the Staedtler pens are significantly less expensive. In addition, the Staedtler pens are not available open stock, which makes them less convenient. Still, I’m enjoying the challenge of using the predetermined palette in the “Nature Colours” set that I’ve been using. I think it’s good for me (in the same way that eating kale is good for me) to use colors that wouldn’t necessarily be my first choice.

Esthetically, I also like the way all my InkTober sketches so far have a cohesive look from the common limited palette.

All of that said, it’s change-up time! All along, I’ve been curious about how these Staedtler markers compare with Faber-Castell’s Pitt pens. The latter are much more familiar to me; I’ve been using them sporadically for years, but I’ve never given them any devoted time. Although Pitt marker maestro Don Colley has long been my marker guru, even his inspiring demos and workshops couldn’t get me past whatever resistance I have (or had) with markers. While he does magic with his, I just haven’t found a way to make them my own.

So far, the tips of my most-used markers are holding up under
my heavy hand...but for how much longer?

In the remaining weeks of InkTober, I’m going to do exactly what I’ve been doing with Staedtler markers: I’ve preselected a limited palette (though this time of my own choosing, since I have a decently wide selection of Pitts) that I’ll stick with. Now that the Staedtlers have warmed me to markers, the Pitts should be an easy transition. And with both brands fresh in my memory, by the end of the month, I might be better informed for writing a comparison review. 

Before then, though, I still have a few more Staedtler sketches to show.

Bad Sketches

 

6/6/26 cloud study (photo reference)

Sometimes sketches just go bad. What can I learn from them?

Weather forecasters recently warned of rain, high winds and thunderstorms. The wind was real, but the rest was over-hyped. Walking through Maple Leaf Park, wondering if I would be caught in the impending storm, I saw a foreboding wall of dark clouds building to the south. I snapped a quick photo and hustled home.

Although I’ve tried painting clouds with watercolors, I’d never tackled them with Caran d’Ache Neocolor II crayons. Initially, I used my usual wet-in-wet “licking” technique. Then while the page was still wet, I went in directly and aggressively with dry crayons. I should have known better, but I used a Hahnemühle Akademie student-grade sketchbook, which doesn’t hold up quite as well as the 100 percent cotton version that I’m used to. The result (above) is not a disaster, but it’s not the look I was going for. I’ll try again sometime in the cotton book and see if that’s better.

The sketch shown below, made on location, was a mistake of a different sort. I was happy to see that the Green Lake Starbucks had opened their rooftop deck for the season. In the distance, these sunlit trees caught my eye. I was so eager to go straight in with color that I failed to think about the composition – which is nonexistent. Even as I began, I was already wagging my finger at myself: I should have done a thumbnail first! When I knew I was in irreversible trouble, I decided to distract myself by working on the murky area behind the trees – maybe the high contrast would help! HA!

6/12/26 Green Lake neighborhood

Someday I’ll go back and try that one again, too.

If I can learn even one thing, a bad sketch isn’t bad at all – just ugly. 😉

My Sketchbook’s Gifts to Me

 

Another partially used sketchbook conquered.

My goal to fill partially used sketchbooks continues. My latest conquest is this Hahnemühle Akademie Aquarelle sketchbook. For student grade, it contains excellent paper, but once I discovered Hahnemühle’s watercolor books containing 100 percent cotton paper, especially on location, there was no turning back.

What makes this book unusual is that it is entirely filled with sketches using reference photos and some imaginary work – not a single page drawn from life. I did a lot of portrait practice, both human and animal, direct watercolor challenges, workshop exercises, composition practices – all done from home.

An exercise in imaginative drawing and watercolor play.

The superpower of working on location is that the sketch becomes permanently infused with sensory memories from the experience. When I look back at an urban sketch, especially from my travels and other experiences that were new to me, all the sounds, smells and feelings of making the sketch come rushing back.

This book doesn’t evoke any memories or feelings in that way. Even when I sketch from a photo I’ve taken myself of a place I know well, the superpower of drawing from life doesn’t work. Although seeing a portrait made of an Earthsworld stranger sometimes  makes me recall whatever struggle or satisfaction I may have felt from an approach or medium I was trying, the subject and experience have no other emotional connection.  

Lots of Earthsworld people! I usually crop images neatly for this blog, but here are the full pages, messy scribbles and all.

This volume, however, is emotionally meaningful in a different way. I began using it in March 2023 in the midst of my most difficult, painful caregiving years. Most pages were filled late at night when I could finally take respite to recover from the day’s challenges so that I could sleep. I now see the book as the direct product of the art therapy that probably saved my life (or at least my sanity). Recalling that time, it’s hard to look through now, but I’m also filled with gratitude.

Composition studies using the Caran d'Ache mixed media set

I also appreciate the purely experimental nature exhibited in this book. With no connection to subject matter, I could focus exclusively on media, technique, approach or whatever else I was exploring. With my grounding in urban sketching, I tend to think of my sketchbooks mainly as repository for my on-location observations. The pages are finished products. But to many artists, a sketchbook is a place for play and experimentation. I have sometimes worried that I don’t do enough of that kind of play in my daily-carry sketchbook, but this book makes me realize I have been doing it all along – I just keep the play in a separate volume.

It is always with great satisfaction that I put away a completed sketchbook into my bookcase designated for that purpose, and my urban-sketch-filled books are usually the most rewarding. This one surprised me for all it has given back to me.

I filled the few remaining pages with doomscrolling prevention tactics and my recent Blick themed Neocolor II palette experiments.

Blick Urban Sketch Palette (Tina Edition)

 

6/4/26 Blick's Urban Sketch palette (photo reference)

Yesterday I emulated the “Blick Exclusive” edition of Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water-soluble wax pastels with the Botanical and Earth Tones theme. In today’s post, I recreate the Urban Sketch set (of course). As I mentioned yesterday, my Cobalt Blue (160) and Emerald Green (210) have gone missing, and both appear in this palette too, so they are absent in my recreation. I didn’t think Cobalt Blue was necessary since Ultramarine is included, but a green seemed essential, so I subbed in Phthalocyanine Green (710).

While the color range is wide enough for most urban scenes, it’s a bit heavy on browns and other earth tones for my needs, and including both Sepia and Black seems nearly redundant. I use Light Gray (intended for pavement, I suppose?)  so infrequently that I didn’t know what to do with it in my sketch. I ended up using it mostly to block in shapes that I colored over later with other colors. It’s curious that the palette includes Lemon Yellow, Golden Yellow and Orange while the Botanical and Earth Tones set includes only one yellow. (A-ha – the tin illustration shows a classic yellow taxicab.)

Phthalocyanine Green stands in for Emerald in my recreated palette.

With blue and green in the palette, I knew what I needed in my reference photo: Trash cans! Maybe I was influenced by the theme’s name, but I found this palette comfortable and easy to use. I only needed to take artistic license with the car’s color (yellow cabs are extremely rare in these parts). Not seeing an obvious way to use Vermilion and Carmine with this reference photo, I had to start a dumpster fire (ha-ha).

While Phthalocyanine Green is ideal for trash cans, I find it too unnatural for foliage. Using this palette taught me, however, that when warmed with Lemon Yellow, it’s not bad.

As I did with yesterday’s palette, I balked at too many colors being used for no reason – and then I reminded myself that no one said I had to use them all. In any case, I enjoyed using these palettes as a fun exercise in stretching my color vocabulary. It was relaxing, too, because I didn’t have to think about which colors to choose. I’ll add this to my doomscrolling prevention toolkit.

The two themes I emulated are each wide-ranging enough that they could be used as standalone sets. The Blick Exclusive series has two more sets – Fantasy Dreamscape and Floral Expressions. Fantasy Dreamscape is overly heavy on cool hues, and the floral set wouldn’t be adequate for urban scenes, making both less versatile. If I come across reference photos that might be appropriate for those palettes, I might try them someday.

In the meantime, I have a more pressing matter at hand: Where could my Emerald Green and Cobalt Blue be . . .?

Blick Botanical and Earth Tones Palette (Tina Edition)

 

6/3/26 A hot mess of 13 colors (photo reference)

Cruising casually on the Blick site one day (as one does), I came across a series of new products: Caran d’Ache Neocolor II sets with a “Blick Exclusive” label! At first my heart skipped a beat: What?? New Neo II colors that only Blick can sell?? It didn’t take long for my heart rate to return to normal; the colors aren’t new at all. Caran d’Ache has curated four themed palettes for Blick to sell exclusively. The 15 colors in each set are all from Cd’A’s standard Neocolor II line, the sets come in Cd’A’s standard red tins, and Blick’s name is on the sleeves.

It’s an interesting co-marketing play. I know that Blick is widespread in the US, but I wouldn’t have guessed that the art supply store is ubiquitous enough for Cd’A to put the store’s name on one of its bestselling products.

In any case, the most interesting part to me was looking at the colors that had been selected for each theme. I’ve found it to be an intriguing creative exercise to try on a palette that someone else has designed. The first time I tried it was several years ago with the Beya Rebaï Neocolor II sets. More recently, fashion designer Kévin Germanier’s surprising palette of colored pencils inspired me in unexpected ways (which led to my own palette-making discoveries that I’m still applying).

Since I own almost all the Neocolor II colors, I thought it would be fun to recreate a couple of the “Blick exclusive” palettes and try them. Today’s post is my version of the Botanical and Earth Tones palette. A couple of colors are missing here: Cobalt Blue (160) and Emerald Green (210). (I’m sure I own both, as my swatch page includes them, yet both have mysteriously disappeared from my studio. Annoying.) I thought the 13 I had were plenty, though, to make a sketch.

Two colors missing from the palette: Cobalt Blue and Emerald Green

While I do understand that no one is expected to use all the colors in the set in a single work, I gave myself that challenge just for fun. My natural tendency is to minimize my palettes to the extreme, but my recent bingeing of Colin Woodward’s YouTubes and taking his mini-workshop have pushed me to try being more maximalized.

Since the theme is flowers and plants, I dug through my reference photos to find one with lots of both, especially in the colors of the palette. The hot mess shown here is the result. The greens were all familiar to me, as I use them often (one is in my current daily-carry). I found it odd, though, that the set includes two olive-y greens that are so similar. I suppose the light blue was intended for the sky in landscapes, but the photo I chose had none visible, so I tossed it around at will. I didn’t learn much from this palette except that 13 colors were too many for this sketch, and I winced at the lack of palette cohesion. Making the scribbly mess was fun, though.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post when I recreate another “Blick exclusive” palette.

Bob Blast’s Painterly Tips

 

5/21/26 photo reference

Bob Blast’s YouTube channel recently came to my attention. Scanning through his titles, I can see that he is a painter, not a sketcher, but as I always do with painting instruction videos, I try to apply his approach to any medium I might use. That’s how I use oil painter Ian Roberts’ extremely informative videos about composition. It’s usually a little more difficult to use pencils, crayons or markers in place of paint, but I enjoy the challenge of attempting it anyway. And almost always, the exercise reconfirms that basic art and design principles apply to any medium.

In the video I viewed recently, Blast (Bob’s real last name is Burridge, but I like that he uses “Blast”) shows how he designs paintings around figures by putting the highest contrast around the area of the focal point. He also uses negative space to clarify and design shapes. Finally, he stresses the importance of showing the direction of light. His style is more abstract than I would typically use for urban sketching, but its visual appeal made me want to try it.

Using a reference photo I had snapped on a walk, I picked out some primary colors in water-soluble markers and crayons. My color choices were based on values, not the photo, and I grabbed basic hues so that I wouldn’t get distracted by trying to “match” what I saw.

Although this approach is very different from the way I usually think, I like the result. I’m especially pleased with how the dark negative space defines the left figure’s lighted side. (I would have liked the way the high-contrast negative space defines the dog’s lighted side if I hadn’t inadvertently drawn the ground shadows through its body!)

5/23/26 Statue of Lenin, Fremont

Anyway, this exercise was a lot of challenging fun. It motivates me to take more high-contrast reference photos so that I can practice this exercise again. 

Could I ever do it on location? It’s often difficult to find a high-contrast scene with ideal lighting that would make this exercise easier, but now that I’m aware of what to look for, I see more potential. Last week in Fremont, I was thinking about Blast’s tips as I sketched the statue of Lenin. Several dense trees are behind Lenin’s head. I made the tree on the left (the lit side of the statue) darker to have higher contrast against the focal point. On that overcast afternoon, I also exaggerated the contrast between light and shadow on the whole statue and made the direction of light more obvious -- something I became more aware of because of Blast’s videos. 

Abstract Colors, Abstract Shapes

 

4/29/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood (This house, which looks more like a beachfront hotel than a residence, is actually dark brown, but I had no problem turning it blue-violet, which has become a favorite dark in my palette. On the other hand, I felt compelled to color the trees around it in their natural hues.)

As Colin Woodward’s YouTubes have made me think more consciously about abstraction, I’ve come to realize that some types of abstraction come more easily to me than others. The textures and shapes of trees and foliage, for example, are easier to abstract than their hues, which I feel compelled to make as natural as possible (I talked about this a bit in yesterday’s post, too).

On the other hand, humanmade shapes likes houses and cars are more challenging to abstract, but it’s easy to use non-realistic (or non-real) colors to depict them.

5/3/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood (With some difficulty, I tried to abstract the cars as much as possible. The blur of foliage was easier to abstract by simply focusing on values.)

Strangest of all is that it’s easier to abstract both shapes and colors when I work from photo references (as below) than from life. It should all be the same to my brain, yet whenever I sketch from life, I feel I must be more life-like. (As is often the case, my brain can be annoying.)

4/15/26 photo reference (Both shapes and colors are easier to abstract when I draw from a photo)

Hacked flat waterbrush

In somewhat related news: Woodward, a painter in various media, uses many types of “real” brushes (he’s too polite to say, but I can tell that he eschews the waterbrush and keeps one around only for emergency use). One of his favorites is a flat wash brush. Although I have no intention of using real brushes on location, he inspired me to dig out a waterbrush I had hacked several years ago. It’s a standard Kuretake waterbrush with a flat edge that I cut (with some difficulty) at an angle. I goofed around with it at the time to make portraits, then forgot about it.

I’m glad I kept it! The point is finer than a Kuretake medium-size round waterbrush, which is my go-to, and it has come in handy a couple of times for details. More useful, though, is the angled flat edge, which enables activating a large area of foliage, for example, without getting the dreaded dab-dab-dab look that can occur when using a round Kuretake. (In fact, avoiding the dab-dab-dab look was what led me to start using a spritzer to activate foliage years ago.) It might just be a novelty, but I’m keeping it in my bag for now.

Working Toward Abstraction

 

4/30/26 Volunteer Park

Sometimes the all-mighty algorithm finally gets it right.

With my reignited love for Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayons, I’ve been looking around for unique or unusual ways that urban sketchers or mixed-media plein air artists are using them.

For quite a while, I wasn’t very inspired. A lot of YouTubers are swatching all the colors for their audience, but I wasn’t seeing much art that involved unique approaches or techniques.

Eventually Colin Woodward popped up in my YouTube feed. Primarily a watercolor and acrylic painter, the Irish artist has lately been exploring both Neocolor II crayons and Derwent Inktense pencils – and he sometimes takes them out for plein air work. A-ha – finally something new and appealing! I’ve been bingeing on his videos ever since.

Although he’s done a few urban scenes, most of his landscapes are of northern Ireland’s lovely woods and streams. His spare, abstract style involves nuanced brushwork to activate water-soluble pigments; in other words, he’s applying water the way a watercolor painter would. One thing I really like about his informative demos is that he explains subtleties like why he changed the grip on his crayon or chose a particular brush at that moment.

Without trying to emulate his brushwork style (which involves a lot of nice watercolor brushes that I don’t intend to use, especially in the field), I tried a sketch at Volunteer Park (top of post). (This type of multi-layered scene of different types of trees is exactly what I was practicing from home recently.) I used my same old waterbrush – but more actively than I typically would. For years now, my primary means of activating color in trees and other foliage has been to spritz the page lightly with water. I like the organic look that results – most of the time. But other times I’ve lost control of the amount of water or direction of the spray.

Central to my sketch is the dense foliage of a magnificent sequoia. That’s very different from the lighter, airier foliage of deciduous trees that I have watched Woodward draw. Still, I tried to be more conscious of the tree’s form as I activated in a more controlled manner.

5/1/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

What my sketch above lacks is Woodward’s abstract elegance. The next day, still thinking of Woodward’s northern Irish landscapes, I stopped on my walk for a typical Tina landscape (about as far from northern Ireland as I could get!): a Maple Leaf alley, at right. In an A6-size Hahnemühle sketchbook, it’s difficult to do any kind of detail with chunky Neocolor crayons, so all I could do was make smudges of color for the trash cans. I like that forced abstraction!

Though my baby steps may not be obvious, I’ve been working toward greater abstraction for a while now. Sometimes it comes out because I’m cold and need to work extra fast. It’s a lot easier when I’m working from reference photos, I discovered. I can set myself an assignment to be looser and more abstract and then focus on that task in the comfort of my home. On location, I have so much “reality” in front of me that I tend to switch on auto-pilot urban sketching, which always comes out tighter and more “real.”

Detail from on-location comics

Another thing I’ve observed about my own process is that the comic-y, line-drawing sketches (example at left) I’ve been making the past couple of years go a long way in satisfying my need for capturing “reality” with no need for abstraction. The drawings are tight and descriptive for a reason, and I like them that way. Sometimes when I do both types in the same location (these sketches from a recent drink & draw are a good example), the part of me with a need for tightness relaxes and allows me to be more abstract. That insight is a big personal win!

My goal for this spring and summer, when I tend to use more color, will be to push myself a bit harder toward abstraction on location. Maybe Woodward’s inspiration will be the nudge I need.

Master Copies of Van Gogh

 

3/10/26 Master copy of Vincent Van Gogh

A website called Draw Paint Academy recently crossed my radar; in particular, an article about the lesser-known works of Vincent Van Gogh. Since I have no formal education in art history, I appreciate learning from writers who can talk about masterworks in a layperson’s language without getting all academic-y.

Two paintings caught my attention: Trees in the Asylum Garden and Saint-Paul Hospital Park (both from 1889). Especially struck by the vibrant color contrasts and dynamic brush strokes (the paintings seem to shimmer and vibrate), I felt inspired to make master copies.

I wasn’t going to use oil paints, of course, but I thought about what dry medium at my disposal might be able to emulate those hatchmark-like brush strokes. Although I hadn’t used them in a long time, Prismacolor Art Stix had come up in a recent conversation with Roy and Mary Jean, so they were out on my desk. Basically block-shaped colored pencils on steroids, they could make flat, broad strokes, and my set includes a good range of colors. Why not? (Related geeky afterthought: Imagine if Derwent made their Drawing Pencil cores in a block form! Be still my heart!)

It’s always instructive and illuminating to copy a masterwork. For one thing, the palettes of these two paintings look so cohesive that I thought the range of hues would be fairly limited, but once I started trying to match them all, I was surprised by how many colors are in them. You know me and my limited palettes; these were boldly outside my comfort zone!

3/12/26 Master copy of Vincent Van Gogh

I noticed that Van Gogh liked to outline shapes with a dark color. Did he “draw” the shapes first and then fill them in? Or did he paint the shapes, and outline later? I’ve seen this in his other works too, but it wasn’t until I copied these myself that I studied the paintings with those questions in mind. The technique caught my attention because it flies in the face of the traditional painting instruction we read in books or hear from instructors: Objects in reality never have lines around them; avoid drawing them (or avoid letting them show in the painting).

One thing I had difficulty with, especially using a dry medium, was covering the entire “canvas” with color as he did (and as most painters do). Sometimes I think this is one of the biggest differences between a sketcher (at least this sketcher) and a painter: I never feel compelled to cover the entire page, and, in fact, I prefer to leave white space. That’s just my style, but it’s also a limitation of my chosen media. It would be impractical and time consuming to cover every speck of paper surface with colored pencils or even crayons. With none of the grace but maybe at least some of the energy, I tried my best to emulate the spirit of Van Gogh’s gestures.

There’s plenty more to study and learn from copying Van Gogh (or any master). I’ll put this in my doomscrolling prevention tool kit. It seems like master copying might be too mentally taxing for late-evening work, and it was certainly not relaxing as, for example, sketching from my own reference photos with Derwent Drawing pencils. But trying to emulate another work takes away the need to be expressive in my own way. In any case, I recommend it.

No limited palette for Vincent!

Beyond Doomscrolling Prevention

 

2/23/26 Neocolor II in Hahnemuhle sketchbook

2/23/26 Derwent Drawing pencil in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook (all sketches from photo references)

An interesting thing is happening with my evening sketches from photos that began as my doomscrolling prevention program. Keeping me from reaching for my phone is still an immediate benefit, but the long-term advantage is that I’m encouraged to use more materials from my vast stash – and sometimes experiment with using them together in ways that probably wouldn’t have occurred to me otherwise.

2/26/26 Derwent Drawing pencil in S&B Zeta sketchbook

You may recall a period a few years ago when I made more than a hundred portraits based on Earthsworld’s photos. I didn’t talk about it at the time, but that late-evening practice began as self-care during what was often my only respite as a caregiver. Drawing the faces of random strangers took me outside my anxious, agitated mind and gave me a focus. After a while, though, the practice went beyond self-care; I found myself learning from the enjoyable portraiture practice and using materials I rarely used on location.

2/26/26 Neocolor II in Hahnemuhle sketchbook

My 407 consecutive days of drawing my hand had a similar outcome: What began as self-care during a historic time became a project that took on a life of its own.

2/26/26 Inktense Blocks, Neocolor II in Hahnemuhle sketchbook

Like the random Earthsworld people, the subjects of these seemingly mundane neighborhood photos don’t mean much to me beyond their composition potential or high-contrast values. I’m having so much fun just grabbing materials that feel good in my hand and seeing what happens when I apply them to paper. Who knew that doomscrolling (or avoiding it) could have such benefits?

3/2/26 This experiment was a mix of more materials than I typically use together. I first used Prismacolor Art Stix (the block form of Prismacolor colored pencils) for the areas that I wanted to remain relatively sharp. Then I used Inktense Blocks and Neocolor II crayons for foliage that I activated with a water spritzer. Finally, I used a Fibralo brush marker to give the central tree stronger definition.