I slept in this morning and decided to start the work day a little later. My emotional support cat came into the bedroom this morning and stayed with me until I had showered and made myself presentable. I decided to put on my vintage pocket protector since I was wearing a comfy flannel shirt on this chilly late autumn day. My emotional support cat hung out on the kitchen table keeping me company while I sketched and then ate my breakfast. I feel better today than I did a week ago.
Digital Plein Air Sketching
We had a couple of days off this past week so my wife and I packed picnic lunches and sketched at two different locations in Lancaster County. On Thursday we went to the Tanger Arboretum where I sketched in the dwarf conifer garden using my 12.9” iPad Pro with Apple Pencil and the Procreate app. Brenda decided to sketch in the beautiful Beech Grove area of the arboretum. I made a color palette to paint from by snapping a photo with my iPad and using the create swatch palette from photo feature in Procreate. I used the standard Procreate flat painting brush.
On Friday, we packed a picnic for the Columbia Crossing Visitor Center in Columbia, PA which is beside the Susquehanna river. The massive concrete arch bridge is a feature of the area that’s hard not to include in an outdoor sketch. I decided to sketch with a fountain pen in a sketchbook while we sat by the river. Brenda was not into sketching that day so she read out loud some historical facts about the bridge and other bridges that were in that location over the years.
It was great to be outdoors (though I think we’ve both picked up mild allergies over the years).
Sketchbook - Trees
This week’s sketchbook page highlight - treetop view from Culp’s Hill observation tower at Gettysburg National Military Park. Rotring Isograph .10 technical pen in Global Handbook Travelogue sketchbook.
Painting With Coffee
Week 12 - Painting doodles with coffee. I have seen numerous photos on Instagram of people painting with coffee and also painting at coffee shops, and I thought I'd give it a try. At the beginning of the week, I mixed up a batch of coffee paint using instant coffee at a super concentrated strength. I cracked open a brand new Strathmore Visual Watercolor Journal and began my coffee paintings. I didn't make any sketches with pencil, I went straight in with the coffee concoction and just made doodles roughly based on a few photos, with some of them just being images that came out of my head.
I mostly painted on my lunch break at work, able to complete two doodles a day due to the amount of time it takes for the sticky coffee paint to completely dry. Painting with the coffee was very relaxing, as the scent of the strong coffee mixture wafted through the air around me as I painted. The first painting of what appears to be a wild man, or as one of my friends described it, a rock star - developed after starting to paint a face. I tried to loosen up a bit on the next painting of my cat by adding some drips, but my painting doesn't really look like a cat, instead more like a cat/racoon. I looked on instagram and YouTube for inspiration and tips on painting with coffee, and there are far more talented coffee art painters out there than I could ever hope to be.
As I look over the paintings from this past week, I think that I should definitely have made them more loose with coffee drips, splatters, and a couple of coffee cup rings. I still have my coffee paint mixture, perhaps I'll go back and create a few more paintings using those techniques.
Next up in Create-A-Thon 2017 - Mixed Media art using Prang Professional Watercolor Pans, Derwent Aquatone Pencils, Pocket Brush Pen, and Uniball Signo White Gel Pen.
Drawing 100 People in One Week
Week 10 - #OneWeek100People2017 - An Urban Sketching challenge to draw 100 people in one week, from Monday, March 6 through Friday, March 10. I successfully completed this challenge, mostly drawing from the Sktchy app, but I was able to make about twenty or so drawings of live people during the week. I started a new sketchbook for the challenge, an Art Alternatives 4 x 6 hardcover sketchbook, just the right size for making quick portrait sketches. My drawings looked cartoonish, maybe caricature-like, but I think they mostly resembled the people I was drawing. I have to accept that I am primarily a cartoon artist and just go with it. I mostly used a brush pen for the drawings, emptying two brush pens, and a cartridge of another by the time the week was over. I used a little watercolor on some of the sketches, which made them look even more like cartoons.
By Friday, after completing the One Week 100 People challenge, my sketchbook was almost full, so I decided to challenge myself to finish filling the sketchbook with people sketches over the weekend, completing another of my Create-A-Thon 2017 projects - to fill an entire sketchbook in one week. I may try that one again with another sketchbook later in the year, but with making one long doodle in a Japanese style Moleskine pocket sketchbook.
I completed another Create-A-Thon 2017 activity, to attend a live model drawing session, which I did yesterday afternoon at Towson Plaza Art. The session was very enjoyable and relaxing, completely different from my usual day-to-day graphic design job. This is why I am challenging myself to a year full of creative projects, to allow myself time away from working on a computer all day. I really enjoy analog art, if that's what you want to call it. It puts my mind in a different frame from my daily problem solving design work.
On Saturday, Brenda and I invited my stepfather over for an evening of painting and pizza. We ordered up some Domino's Pizza, turned on the relaxation station on Pandora and painted for a couple of hours. I had envisioned my painting of a skull floating over a field of flowers turning out differently than the creepy clownish skull painting that it turned out to be. It was fun to paint though, I would like to get out and paint landscapes using my french easel. I had intended to do that on my vacation this week, but the weather is going to be snowy and cold.
Next up in Create-A-Thon 2017 - Winsor and Newton Pigment Markers on Yupo Paper.
iSkn Slate
Brenda really surprised me this year with a Christmas gift that I've been eyeing up since I saw it advertised in my Instagram feed a couple of months ago. It's a new drawing tablet called "The Slate" by the iSkn company located in France. For week one of Create-A-Thon 2017 I've been sketching with it attached to my iPad Mini and MacBook Pro. The Slate can also be used in standalone mode for on-the-go sketches that can later be imported with your computer or iPad using the Imagink app.
The tablet includes a paper sketchpad, two clips to hold sketch paper to the tablet surface, a ballpoint pen equipped with a magnetic ring, graphite pencil with removable magnetic ring, and a usb cable for charging. My Slate also came with a nice carrying case with a snap closure with room to carry my iPad Mini. The Slate is very lightweight and of nice build quality.
The Slate works with paper attached, allowing you to make sketches while seeing the results in real time on your bluetooth synced iPad or usb cable connected computer using the Imagink app. Imagink has several tools with size and opacity adjustments and the ability to create layers. Throughout my testing of The Slate this week, I found both the pen and the pencil with magnetic ring to be very accurate in capturing what I was drawing. The removable magnetic ring can be attached to your own pencils, provided they fit the included adaptor. I've only found a few of my art pencils that fit, but a larger size adaptor is available from iSkn as well as a stylus called The Tip that allows The Slate to be used as a drawing tablet. I've added the larger magnetic ring adaptor and The Tip to my birthday wish list.
The Slate can also be used on-the-go to make sketches that can be edited or imported later on your iPad or computer (pc and mac). Sketches can be exported from the Imagink app in jpg, psd, svg, png, bmp, as well as video mp4. I experimented with exporting different file formats, and found the files imported as expected for further editing in Photoshop and Illustrator, with layers also being imported.
I have to say that I really am impressed with The Slate and how well it captures my sketches, though I'm not really sure how it will fit into my creative workflow. I will be practicing drawing more with it and look forward to watching what others create using The Slate. I've included side by side sketches, actual pen or paper sketch on the left with Imagink files on the right.
Next up in Create-A-Thon 2017, I will be trying out Derwent Graphitint Pencils.