A Creature Design Technique

Blue Creature

A short post on an ink technique I enjoy.  This fellow was first drawn in pencil on toned paper.

Second step: Inking over the pencil lines (which would be the first step) with a crow quill pen and rapidograph ink.

Third Step: Adding white highlights with white acrylic gouache. When working on toned paper, I like to add the highlights before the cross-hatched shadows because I have a tendency to cover up too much of the toned paper (which serves as the mid-values) when I ink the darks. It's a personal problem.

The Fourth Step is the cross hatching.  

The Fifth step is adding transparent acrylic inks for color as seen in the first image.

A big "thank you" to Salvia at Pinzellades al Mon for the kind feature of my monstrous absurdities (visit that cool blog for wonderful, world-wide illustrations):

Pinzellades al Mon

Btw, feel free to email me at tomsarmo4{at}gmail{dot}com or comment here with questions about this fun ink technique!

Thanks for the visit, and for checking out Salvia's blog!

The Old Witch, Part Two

http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/

Hello again!
In the previous post I showed the prelims for the border (above is a detail of the stonework at the top)...

 ...but I hadn't shown my source for the border design. So here it is, snagged from a Dover clip art book. It's a lot of fun to let something like this generate fresh imagery!

When the design was all planned and sketched onto multiple layers of bum wad, I placed them onto my light table ( http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/2013/08/quick-and-easy-diy-artists-light-box.html ) for tracing onto a sheet of 140 lb watercolor paper. Cold press is my choice most often. I chose a human femur for her cane, just for the subtle malevolence...

http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/

...and went over the pencil lines with pen, brush, and india ink.

http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/

I limited my palette to five colors--raw umber, burnt sienna, cadmium red, cerulean, and
ultramarine-- basically the primaries (a yellow, two reds, and two blues). Here's a preliminary wash of raw umber and cerulean over the pen work.

http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/

Building up the layers, bit by bit.

http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/

The obligatory and over-used hand-and-brush shot...

http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/

...and a detail of the peeping scribe at the bottom of the border. I love hand lettering! Finding a font, nudging, changing, and embellishing it, and then adding the paint results in a particularly pleasurable feeling.

http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/

Here's the staged shot of the final art with materials and reference props.
The poster--one of a series--will be available in 2015.

Thanks for following up on this--hope you enjoyed the process!

Arthur L. Guptill's Books

Good old (available used for now) instruction books:

The book (this one's a reprint) is an overview in a way. Designed I guess for beginners, I still check it out for inspiration. If I'm being lazy about doing study sketches, cracking it open usually gets me in the mood.

Simple and straightforward.

 

There are also a few of these masterful drawings mixed in. Admittedly bearing little relation to a modern studio, it's a great drawing to study nonetheless--just look at it! I like the text, too. Guptill's words have been often quoted or re-mixed without credit. Lots of gems here if you take the time to read.

From Guptill's Rendering in Pen and Ink, still the all-time comprehensive pen and ink guide and overall drawing manual. This book is incredible--if you only owned one of the four listed here--this is the one!

I continue to learn new things from revisiting this book. Pretty much everything an artist needs to know about drawing and rendering (not just pen and ink) is included, from value to perspective to architecture to landscape.

In addition to instruction, there are sections containing pen and ink works by masters. Again, I recommend reading the text as well as looking at the pics--don't miss out.

Guptill manages to do it all for me with this volume--technique and inspiration!

 I also have his book, Rendering in Pencil. Not being much of a graphite renderer, I don't find it as enlightening as the book previously discussed, but that's just my bias. The next book though, is indispensable if you love watercolor:

From Watercolor Painting Step-by-Step by Arthur L. Guptill.

There are a ton of expensive, slick-but-empty "how-to-paint-watercolor" books out there. Do yourself a favor--ignore most of them, find this one, and read it. You'll save some money and you won't find a better overall textbook for learning and re-discovering what watercolor's all about.

Maybe the thing I love best about Guptill is his profound knowledge yet refusal to be absolute. His writing style contains specific instruction without being dismissive of the many approaches an artist can take to make pictures. Only one example; this book allowed me to discover the use of white at a time when all my instructors were condemning that use as "not true watercolor".

I don't think any of these books are still in print, but used copies are still available on the internet. I have trouble not buying more copies of Rendering in Pen and Ink or Watercolor Painting Step-by-Step when I see them in used bookstores--have to talk to myself in order to pass them by.

Hope you found this helpful. Thanks for reading.

Art Resources: Books vs the Internet

Yes, still hacking away at new color stuff, but gave in this morning and took a book break.

The studio at 8 am.

  

I like books best for resources and inspiration--they fill more than four bookcases around the house--three of which are stuffed into the small studio where I paint. That collection might seem excessive to some, but I turn to it every day. Yeah, I have a computer downstairs; definitely use it for an instant resource or answer, and have thought hard about a laptop for the studio, just as a convenience. But nothing seems to replace the information from my books.

Best of all, when my head is crazy with art/internet/business, or is overwhelmed by a new experiment in painting, grabbing a book, my chair, and a cup of coffee guarantees total peace. I never get that from a screen.

I suppose my reliance on (and love of) books dates me fairly, but does anyone else prefer books 

over the web for art resources?