Three Trunks

11/7/17 photo reference

Here’s last week’s graphite class exercise (from photo reference, as always). This lesson focuses on showing the cylindrical shape of the trunks and the various types of textures of moss, bark and other markings on the three different tree species. 

The moss on the center tree is both challenging and fun to draw. The entire trunk has a contour shadow, and each clump of moss has both a contour shadow and a shadow that it casts. It’s super tedious, yet for some reason this type of tedium engages me.

Grabbing Color When I Can

11/3/17 Northgate

Our spectacular autumn is over. Like a loud, overbearing, uninvited party guest, winter lumbered in a few days ago, and her name is La Niña. She brought overnight temperatures in the mid-30s and, most surprisingly, snow! I knew the sunshine wouldn’t last forever, and I fully expected rain by now, but snow?

Still, I’ve been grabbing color where I can, even last Friday when it snowed. I deliberately arrived at a dental appointment a little early because I knew I could park near those maples on Fifth Northeast that I sketched just the week before in the delightfully bright sun. The windshield kept getting covered with slushy snowflakes, so I had to keep turning on the wipers. (That streak you see running down the car on the right occurred when I leaned out the side window to take my “trophy” photo. Ah, social media. . . it has become part of the message.) 

The next day – still chilly, but at least the snow had turned to rain – I had an errand at Roosevelt Square (below). Over the edge of the parking lot barrier, all I could see was the very top of a maple and two utility poles behind it. 

11/4/17 Roosevelt Square

A couple days later, the sun was back. Temps were still in the 30s by mid-morning, so I stayed in my car for one last shot at my favorite traffic circle. I sketched this trio of maples (below) almost exactly a month ago when the one on the right was just starting to turn, and the one on the left was almost fully green. Now the one on the left has a few orange leaves still hanging on, but the one on the right is bald. 

Sigh. It was a lovely fall.

11/6/17 Greenwood neighborhood

Watercolor Pencil Demo: Urban Sketching

A sourwood tree near Green Lake
was the subject of this demo sketch.

How different is using water-soluble colored pencils on location compared to making a still life at my desk? The process of writing yesterday’s still life demo reinforced that urban sketching is entirely different. For my own benefit in documenting my processes (as well for any readers who might be interested), on the same day that I sketched the maple leaf, I went out to sketch a tree near Green Lake (you saw this sourwood tree a few days ago) and took a photo at every step. I shot these photos with my phone, so the images aren’t as clear as yesterday’s scanned images, but I hope they get the job done of showing what I did.

Step 1: The colors I used are as follows:

Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelles in light olive (245), yellow ochre (034), Cornelian (850), scarlet (070), crimson aubergine (599), sepia 50% (906), Payne’s gray (508), Prussian blue (159). Not shown: middle cobalt blue (660).

Step 1: Select colors

Step 2: I measured out the composition I wanted to fit on the page with small marks. I didn’t draw a contour line; I simply used crimson aubergine (foliage) and sepia (trunk) to begin scribbling the rough shape of the tree.

Step 2: General tree shape is roughly scribbled.

Step 3: Using mostly crimson aubergine, yellow ochre, Cornelian and scarlet plus a touch of Prussian blue, I laid on a heavy application of pencil pigment. More than drawing, this was like scribbling with crayons, fast and furious, to get as much pigment down as quickly as I could. This is the step that differs the most from my still life approach: I intend to do only one main application of pigment and one activation with water, so I need to put on as much color as possible all at once.

Step 3: Pigment is applied heavily to foliage.

Step 4: This is the most fun step! I laid the sketch on the ground and, with my hand about a foot and a half from the paper, I spritzed the foliage area with water (read more about this technique in the post I wrote last year when I first discovered it). I’m currently using a hand sanitizer spray bottle that puts out a fine mist. The tricky part about this step is knowing when to stop spraying. I sometimes overspray and have to use a tissue to dab the excess water that starts to pool around the drawn area, and then the pigment starts wicking toward the pools. You also must be careful if there’s a wind, which may direct the spray onto your pants or onto parts of the page that you want to keep dry.

Step 4: Water is spritzed onto foliage.

Step 5: While the paper was still wet, I used all the same pencils to deepen the foliage colors in some areas, especially the shaded area on the right side of the tree. Again, this was basically dabbing and scribbling, but more gently, since the paper was wet.

Step 5: Dry pencils applied to still-wet foliage.

Step 6: To paint the sky, I revised an old trick I discovered way back when I was using a lot of fountain pen inks in waterbrushes as “cheater” watercolors. First, I applied a swatch of middle cobalt blue to a scrap piece of heavy watercolor paper that I carry for this purpose. I sprayed that lightly with water. Then I spritzed the sketchbook page where the sky would be, and used a clean brush to spread the water more evenly on the paper.

Step 6: Prepare pigment on scrap paper; spray sky area with water.

Step 7: Using a waterbrush, I dabbed generously into the swatch of middle cobalt blue and applied the pigment quickly to the wet paper. Steps 6 and 7 are the most similar to using traditional watercolors wet-in-wet. It’s a somewhat cumbersome process (compared to all the other steps) that’s easier to do if I can lay the sketchbook down flat (though I often do it in my hands while standing). I’m still looking for an easier way to get the same effect for the sky. What I don’t like is applying dry pencil to dry paper and trying to activate that with a waterbrush. Streaks are difficult to avoid, or the sky takes on an overworked appearance that I don’t care for.

Edited 6/6/18: Here’s an update on how I do the sky.

Step 7: Apply sky pigment wet-in-wet.

Step 8: Using sepia, Payne’s gray and light olive, I drew the cars and ground foliage. I used Prussian blue for the ground shadows.

Step 8: Draw cars and ground shadows.

Step 9: Using sepia and Payne’s gray, I drew the utility pole and pedestrian and scribbled in the background elements. First making sure the tree foliage was completely dry, I used my Franklin-Christoph fude fountain pen and Platinum Carbon Black ink to draw the power lines. Then I was thrilled to notice that the power lines were casting shadows on the foliage, so I put those in (I’m easily thrilled!).

Step 9: Draw power lines and other details.

Step 10: I activated the ground shadows. I used a waterbrush to “lick” a bit of pigment from the scarlet pencil and dabbed it lightly on the ground for the fallen leaves. Start to finish, this sketch took about 60 minutes (more typically, a sketch this size would take about 45 minutes, but stopping to photograph added more time).

Step 10: Ground shadows activated; final details added. "Trophy shot" photographed!

How does today’s demo differ from yesterday’s? While sketching the maple leaf was more like drawing – starting with a contour line and then coloring – sketching this tree required more of a painterly approach. For example, I think of Steps 2 and 3 as being the pencil equivalent of painting large shapes with a large brush and loose, wet watercolors. (Granted, this tree was an organic subject that demanded a loose approach. If the subject had been a building, I might have approached it differently. Hmmm, that might be another demo someday.) The sky was literally a wet-in-wet painting approach.

The completed sketch (scanned).

Another difference is that I didn’t want to wait for the foliage area to dry and reapply more pencil, so I had to apply a heavy dose of pigment all at once if I wanted rich colors. Water-soluble colored pencils make it easy to keep applying more pigment to get the intensity I want. After struggling for years with watercolors that never come out as intense as I want them to be, pencils have liberated me in that way.

The biggest difference, of course, from my perspective, is that I remained standing for the entire sketch (well, squatting occasionally to spritz the page on the sidewalk), so I worked much more quickly and loosely than I would if I were seated at my comfy desk. Although it wasn’t always easy to work while standing, it was still much easier to use colored pencils compared to using paints while standing. Colored pencils have given me freedom in that way, too.

Watercolor Pencil Demo: Still Life

A blog reader asked about the colored pencil palette I’ve been using to sketch maple trees recently and suggested a demo with a leaf. Until she made that request, it had never occurred to me to do a step-by-step blog demo, but as soon as she did, I thought, Why not? All it takes is remembering to snap a photo at every step.

As it turns out, remembering to do that is harder than it seems; sketching is so often an auto-pilot, intuitive process for me. But I did manage to catch myself in time for most of these steps. In fact, I appreciated pausing to capture these steps because that forced me to think about what I was doing long enough to document it and, now, to articulate it.

Step 1: The colors I chose for this maple leaf are as follows:

Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelles in light olive (245), orange (030), vermillion (060); Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer in Delft blue (141); Faber-Castell Polychromos in dark red (225). All pencils are water-soluble except Polychromos.

Step 1: Select colors

Step 2: I used vermillion to draw the leaf’s contour in a Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook. Note the rather prominent misdrawn line at lower left! (I guess my focus wandered off for a moment.) I did not erase, however. Erasing almost never removes all the color, and it also damages the paper’s surface, which affects later applications of pencil and especially water.

 

Step 2: Contour drawing

Step 3: I applied the first layer of light olive, orange and vermillion. This layer was rather sloppily and quickly applied just to get the entire image covered with pigment.

Step 3: Begin to apply first layer of pigment.

Step 4: Using a Kuretake waterbrush, I activated the pigment of the first pencil application with water. Again, I worked relatively quickly with short brush strokes and without much care (except near the contour line, where I was a bit more careful). I waited for the paper to dry completely. (As all watercolor painters know, this is the most annoying step. I actually left the room and made some tea; otherwise, I would have been tempted to touch it before it was completely dry.) Note: The prominent misdrawn line I pointed out in Step 2 has already disappeared. When I know a line will be colored over, erasing is not necessary at all.

 

Step 4: Activate first layer of pigment with water.

Step 5: A second layer of the same pencils was applied, taking a bit more time to blend the various pigments. You might be asking why I didn’t apply the colors in a single, more intense application during Step 3 and activate them once. A year ago, that’s the way I would have done it, because I didn’t know there was any other way. But last spring in my colored pencil class, I learned that it’s not only possible to apply water-soluble pencils in multiple layers; it’s actually preferable when you are trying to build richer, more complex hues. It also makes it easier to adjust values.

I meant to take a photo when I finished applying pencil, but I forgot, so I started applying water on the bottom half of the leaf. Then I remembered, so I stopped and allowed the wet part to dry so that I could put the sketch on the scanner. The top half of the leaf is still unactivated. In retrospect, I’m happy that I scanned it at this stage, because it’s interesting to compare the dry and activated parts of the drawing and see how much more intense the colors become after water is applied. (Fortunately, unlike watercolor paint, colored pencils are more forgiving, so I can stop halfway and then continue without ruining the drawing.)

After I scanned it, I continued activating the rest of the leaf. At this stage, I was a little more careful to apply water, but not much, because the leaf has a matte, mottled, textured surface. (A smooth, polished surface, such as the shiny skin of an apple, would be difficult to render with water-soluble pencils, so I probably would have used traditional colored pencils, which are easier to control when I want that type of appearance.)

I again allowed the paper to dry completely. Note: It’s important to use a high-quality watercolor paper when applying multiple layers of pencil repeatedly reactivated with water. I’ve had the best results with S&B Beta, which is 180-pound paper. I’ve also had reliable results with the Canson XL 140-pound paper I use in my handbound sketchbooks. Anything lighter, though, might result in degradation of the surface.

Step 5: Apply second layer of pigment; apply water to the bottom half.

Step 6: I used more of the same Caran d’Ache pencils to add texture by lightly rubbing the side of the cores over the drawing. I knew I didn’t want to water-activate the details, so I chose Polychromos, which is a harder traditional pencil that sharpens to a strong point. Using a freshly sharpened dark red, I drew in the leaf’s veins and crisped up the leaf’s points.

 

Step 6: Add details.

Step 7: At this point, I thought I would finish with a shadow, so I chose a Delft blue Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer water-soluble pencil. I chose a Durer rather than Caran d’Ache Museum because the Durers are a bit harder, and I wanted to be able to retain a relatively sharp point for that narrow shape. After drawing the shadow, it occurred to me that if I applied water, I would probably lose the shadow’s crisp edge, so I decided to leave the pencil dry. In retrospect, if I’d made this realization earlier, I would have chosen another Polychromos, which is much harder than the Durer, making it easier to draw and color in a slim area.

 

Step 7: Draw shadow. Sketch completed.

The freshly fallen leaf I used as my model was relatively flat, but it still had a bit of a curl to it, and I regret that I didn’t capture the very subtle highlight on the high points to make it look more dimensional. But for this demo and responding to my reader’s request, I like the way I captured the colors.

Start to finish, this sketch took a couple of hours, though much of that was waiting time.

Developing this demo made me more aware that my process for sketching a maple leaf (or any still life) at my desk is very different from my process for sketching on location. I thought it would be interesting to do a demo of urban sketching too, so stay tuned for that tomorrow. 

Was this interesting and helpful? Any requests for future demos?

Vocabulary Homework

10/27/17

Last week Suzanne gave us a graphite class homework assignment that I was especially eager to do: sketches of different types of foliage – from life! Yes! After seven weeks of drawing only from photo references, we were finally instructed to look at actual trees and make small samples showing how the foliage differs among them. This assignment is intended to help us develop a wider “vocabulary” of marks that we can refer to when we need them. The purpose of having a broad vocabulary is to avoid resorting to drawing generic trees.

Of course, the best way to avoid drawing generic trees is to have as much knowledge as possible about specific types. Suzanne herself has an admirably vast arboreal knowledge, and just learning from her has helped me a bit in that regard. While I’m not interested in trees enough to study them in general, I do want to be able to identify at least the ones I encounter in my neighborhood, especially ones I’ve sketched, so that’s my goal now.

10/27/17

When I was at Swansons with USk, I was tempted by all the festive autumn décor, but I still hadn’t started the vocabulary assignment, and I knew the cloudless sky and sunshine would make the homework easier. I wandered around Swansons’ large property to the back lot where the nursery’s trucks and equipment are stored. A variety of trees grew right behind the lot. With only a 4B pencil, I tried to capture the essence of each tree by varying the marks and textures. As challenging as it is to draw trees by any means, compared to drawing them from photos, having live models felt like a piece of cake. (I was born to draw from life!)

At the bottom of the page is a photo I took. See if you can match my “vocabulary” sample with its model.

My Fountain Pen Best Friends

My fountain pen BFFs.

Pencils – both graphite and colored – have been getting most of my drawing love the past year or so. But in the second week of InkTober when I decided to switch from ballpoint to fountain pen, I was reminded (yet again – I had a similar InkTober revelation two years ago) of how much I love sketching with the latter. It’s not that I forget, exactly, but since the fountain pen was one of the first tools I started drawing with, I sometimes take it for granted. While pencils, colored pencils and brush pens all have unique qualities that I love, a fountain pen delivers an unequivocal line matched by none (at least in my hand). Unlike any other drawing instrument, it seems to express my hand’s movement and direction most closely – like it or not. There’s no erasing, covering up or backing out. I don’t always love what it reveals, but like a brutally honest friend, it never falsely flatters me, and it can still surprise me with its elegance. So today’s Fountain Pen Day post is dedicated to my BFF pens:

Nos. 1 and 2: Sailor Naginata Fude de Mannen. My epic search nearly three years ago led me to No. 2 (1911 full size in matte black), and when I sourced a second one (1911 full size in standard black), grabbed it, too. ‘Nuff said.

No. 3: Franklin-Christoph Fude. My newest fountain pen, it is the most surprising in that I did not have high expectations when I bought it. Besides my beloved Sailors, the F-C fude has proven to be the only acceptable fude I will use.

No. 4: Pilot Posting. I don’t often have need for an ultra-fine or even fine fountain pen when drawing because when I have one in my hand, I find myself getting too fiddly with details in a way that is not flattering to my sketches. But every now and then I need a line finer than what my fudes can produce, especially if I have the urge for line work that mimics traditional pen-and-ink hatching. Pilot’s under-rated posting nib does the job.

No. 5: Sailor Cross Point. Although it doesn’t have quite the same range of line widths as my fudes, the Sailor Cross Point is even smoother (which I thought was hardly possible). Because of its more limited range, it doesn’t get as much sketching mileage, but I still take it out now and then to remind me of what a joy it is to use. Most of the time it stays inked up on my desk as my favorite journal-writing pen. I also love it for sentimental reasons: It’s the only high-end fountain pen I purchased in Tokyo. 

More Leaves to Peep

10/28/17 Maples ablaze on 5th Ave. NE at Northgate Way

Everyone I talk to agrees: We are having one of the best autumns ever for color! 

On my way to the pumpkin carving party last Friday, I missed my turn to the community center because I was so dazzled by the fiery maples near Northgate Mall. I don’t know enough about maples to identify their varieties, but unlike the ones I saw the other day at University Village, which were all bright yellow-orange, these displayed a full range of green, yellow, orange, red and magenta. By the time I left the party, the sun had dipped below the buildings, so the trees were no longer blazing. I returned the next day to catch them in the late afternoon sun, and those maples were once again afire.

10/30/17 Sourwood tree near Green Lake

A couple days later I followed a tip from a friend (thanks, Katie!) to a tree near Green Lake. Expecting to see a maple when I arrived at the intersection she gave me, I was surprised to find another type of tree: spectacularly red in the mid-afternoon sun and dripping strands of yellow-green pod-like buds. After doing my usual “research” (a social media call to my tree-knowledgeable friends), I learned that it’s a sourwood tree. (Actually, a pair of them stood right next to each other, but from the angle I sketched them, they looked like one.) Not only has this fall been a feast of eye candy; I’m also learning to identify trees new to me.

(By the way, you’ll be seeing this sourwood sketch again soon for a special purpose . . . stay tuned.)