The Sketchbook Project 2017

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I have been wanting to participate in the worldwide sketchbook project created by the Brooklyn Art Library for some time, and finally in November I signed up to create a sketchbook. How it works is that you purchase a sketchbook from The Sketchbook Project with the option of having it digitized, and you fill it up when you receive it using one of the themes or with whatever you like, following the rules and size limitations.

After completing your sketchbook, you link it up to the library online and mail it back to be included in their permanent collection. If you have purchased the digitized option, your sketchbook will be scanned and made available online for others to view. The sketchbooks can be checked out and viewed in person at the Brooklyn Art Library or on one of their mobile sketchbook tours around the country.

Here are a few pages from my sketchbook entry with the theme "All about me". The fully digitized version can be viewed here.

Fuji Instax Square SQ10 Camera

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Week 21 - Fuji Instax Square SQ10 Camera - I have been eagerly awaiting the new Fuji Instax square format camera and film since it was announced last fall and I was able to order one on release day, May 19th. My package arrived the following Monday and I set about charging it up and briefly looking at the instructions. I had already read about the specs in numerous reviews, and on the Fuji Instax Square website and watched all the YouTube video reviews I could find.

I've used two packs of Instax Square film with it so far and I really love the results. I like how I can use the LCD screen on the back of the camera to frame up my shot to get just what I want in the photo and also to make sure the horizontals and verticals are all lined up. Even after making the photo, I can edit it by zooming in, panning left/right, up/down to get the composition just right before printing. I like the editing features where I can add a little vignetting (darker or lighter) a look I really like in my photos. The filters are nice, the ones I like best are the monochrome and sepia ones. Brightness can be adjusted as well. After editing, you can choose to print the photo. I really like that I can go out and concentrate on shooting photos, come back and look through them and choose and edit which photos I want to print. I can make additional prints, make further edits or go back to the original photo setting if I choose. The camera can also be used for traditional instant photo shooting where the photo comes out right after you take the picture.

Another thing that I'd been playing around with is that photos taken on other cameras can be printed from the SQ10. The files have to be saved with four letters and four numbers in the jpeg format into the root folder of the micro sd card that goes into the camera. Files from my iphone worked just fine, but I found that photos I had shot and scanned from film negatives required a little workaround to be read by the camera. I opened the files in Pixlr and saved them as jpegs with the exif data removed, and that seemed to work. I think it's neat that I can print photo scans from film negatives that were shot with some of the vintage cameras in my collection as well as my Holga. This may seem like a lot of trouble to go through, but then isn't film photography more fun when doing things the long way?

I haven't explored the bulb mode or the double exposure setting yet, but overall I am really pleased with the camera. I feel like now I will get many more keepers out of my instax photos than the sometimes hit or miss results of traditional instax and other cameras that use instax film.

Inky Explorations

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Week 20 - Experimenting with ink using an inexpensive bamboo pen, a stick, and ink wash with fountain pen details. I picked up a two pack of the bamboo pens at Hobby Lobby, and the stick from our backyard.

I was inspired to get out the bamboo pens after seeing a video from one of my subscribed channels on YouTube. I used photos of Egyptian Art that I had taken at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore for sketching ideas. I found drawing with the bamboo pen allowed for some variation in the lines and sometimes distributed blobs of ink that were unpredictable, but I like the results. I especially liked the Liquitex Muted Inks with these pens. I have four of the five colors in the line - violet, turquoise, green and pink. I may pick up the last color, gray, at some point.

My niece is studying to be a graphic designer and she showed me one of her college projects made with stick and ink, so I thought I would try that out. Drawing with the stick was even more unpredictable than the bamboo pen and it was easy to make loose, random strokes with it. I held it high away toward the end of the stick, allowing for a less controlled line, the effect is very sketchy. I also liked the Liquitex Muted Inks better with the stick.

I only tried one wash and ink line drawing, the last of the day. This exercise was described in the book, Art Before Breakfast, by Danny Gregory, a great book filled with creative ways to get you drawing more. I like the results with this as well, and may experiment with that technique using different colors of ink.

Next up in Create-A-Thon 2017, a year long creative exploration - Derwent Inktense Pencils.

Yupo Paper

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Week 19 - Trying out Yupo Paper. Brenda bought me two sizes of Yupo paper pads for my birthday and I finally got around to trying it out this week. I had used a sheet of it earlier with Winsor and Newton Pigment Markers and I liked the results with that.

I didn't get to experiment with Yupo much during the week but spent all day in my studio with it on Saturday. The surface of the paper is a matte surface with a dull sheen, not slippery or shiny like you would think a plastic synthetic paper would be. The surface is waterproof, so waterbased mediums do not absorb into the paper, but instead the water evaporates and leaves just the pigment.

I tried Yupo with my Winsor and Newton artist quality watercolors, non-waterproof Higgins black ink, and Marabu Mixed Media art spray. Since the mediums don't absorb into the paper, they can be wiped away before or after drying to create interesting effects. I played around with the different mediums, creating several abstract pieces. I also tried a floral painting of plants in a pot. It was very therapeutic and relaxing to spend hours in my studio experimenting. I'm not entirely sure I like any of the pieces that I created, but there is room for more experimentation.

Next up in Create-A-Thon 2017, a year long creative exploration - drawing with Bamboo pen, stick and ink, and loose ink wash with pen detail.

Painting En Plein Air

Week 18 - Painting En Plein Air. I had chosen to do this activity during the same week as Digital Collage for a contrast in working styles and also because I could work with one when I couldn't work with the other. 

For the first time trying plein air painting, I packed up my French Field Easel which is usually set up as my studio easel, and helped Brenda get set up with another easel of mine. We headed out to Codorus State Park near the Mary Ann Furnace Trail where the overflow parking is located. There is an old barn there that Brenda made a painting of and I painted a distant hill with trees. I used an inexpensive water mixable oil paint set for the first time and found them stiff at first, but added in Acrylic gloss medium and they went on better. The weather was in the mid seventies, with sunny skies and swirly clouds. The sounds of nature and the occasional car passing on the road below with butterflies bouncing among the tall grass in the field, was also quite pleasant.

We had a couple of ladies out walking their dogs briefly stop to check on what we were painting. Nothing too traumatic, but one of my fears while out painting, that I might actually have to talk to a stranger about what I'm doing. 

Setting up and taking down my French Field Easel was also problem free, thankfully. The time passed quickly and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Brenda had some difficulty painting with the easel I had put together for her, so after watching several plein air painting videos on YouTube and seeing different Pochade Boxes with their fancy straps and drawers, we set about making our own inexpensive Pochade Boxes out of wooden sketching boxes bought from A.C. Moore.

The process involved inserting 1/4 - 20 T-Nuts in the bottom of the boxes allowing them to be mounted on a tripod. We bought inexpensive wooden rulers and used screws to make a brace to keep the lids open while painting and added a bungie cord setup to hold our canvas boards in place while we painted. They fit quite nicely in a backpack with our tripods and other painting essentials. We tried them out on Sunday at another part of Codorus State Park and they worked quite well, though now we feel it is time to invest in better quality paints.

Now that I've experienced Plein Air Painting, it is definitely something I want to do more of this summer and fall. If I continue to enjoy painting en plein air, I may invest in a better quality pochade box, but for now this one is pretty cool.

Next up in Create-A-Thon 2017, a yearlong creativity exploration - Experimenting with Yupo Paper.

Digital Collage on iPad Pro

Week 17 - Digital Collage on iPad Pro 12.9" with Apple Pencil. My resources for these collages were my photographs that were digitally altered with Snapseed, Diptic, and Photoshop Mix using my iPad and iPhone. My clipped art resources were from several collections of permission free and copyright free vintage anatomy and clip art.

I prepared the clipped art files by isolating the images in photoshop on the desktop and then saving the files as png so that I could import them already clipped into Procreate on my iPad Pro. The files were saved to a cloud account where I can access them as needed on my iPad. It was very easy then to manipulate and combine the files into a digital collage. Procreate has some very nice brushes to allow for adding effects like the blood splatters and drips in the image above, titled "Three Heads in a Field." The background for that image was a photo from the landscape at Gettysburg, then edited in Snapseed and Photoshop Mix. The background photo was then mirrored in Diptic to create a surrealistic background to this haunting image of three anatomy heads floating above a field.

For "Marburg Skull," I combined a skull photo that I shot in Washington D.C. with another of my favorite things, tentacles, to create what I imagine is beneath Lake Marburg at Codorus State Park, which covers the old town of Marburg.

In "Heart of the Universe" I combined a vintage anatomical illustration of a human heart with a galaxy background that I had created in Procreate last year. I also added other vintage art and brush effects like the water waves brush to complete the piece.

Last night I worked on another, "Fish Filet" where I combined a background photo that I had shot out at Codorus State Park earlier in the week with vintage art illustrations from The Clip Art Book. The background was edited in Diptic, Photoshop Mix, and Snapseed, and the clipped art was colored with the Apple Pencil to create another surrealistic composition.

I really enjoyed working with this digital collage process and will continue to work on it this week when I'm not out painting en plein air with Brenda. Look for an upcoming post on Plein Air Painting coming up in the next few days.

Brush Pen Sampler No. 2

Week 15 - Brush Pen Sampler Number 2 purchased for $26 with free shipping from jetpens.com. Also, this week, I tried out the 12 color Pentel Touch Sign Pen set from Target, purchased for $19.99 plus tax. There are six pens in the Jet Pens sampler, 5 of them disposable with fibrous tips and one nylon brush type cartridge style refillable pen.

The first brush pen I tried was the Kuretake No. 8 Fountain Brush Pen, it is the cartridge style refillable one with nylon bristles. It's very similar to a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, only the brush tip is a little shorter. I really like this style of brush pen, as it allows me to get very fine lines in flowing strokes that can have varying widths. I used that pen to make "The Cooker" drawing, inspired by the audiobook I'm currently listening to on my work commute, "Maplecroft."

I thought I would make drawings of robots to test out the rest of the pens in the sampler. These pens have firmer tips that do not have bristles, but do allow for varying line widths depending on the firmness of each pen. I made the robot sketches a a large Piccadilly Blank Journal with light cream colored pages. I think these journals are really meant for writing, but I like to make sketches in them. I'm almost finished filling my second journal of 240 pages. 

The Kuretake Fudegokochi produces a nice dense black line that does allow for slight variations in weight, but I really like the contrast produced on light paper. Another of my favorites in the sampler is the Zebra Disposable Brush Pen which produced crisp linework in my robot sketch. The other pens in the sampler are Kuretake Bimoji Brush Pen, Pentel Touch Sign Pen, and Pilot Fude-Makase Color Brush Pen. All the pens aside from the Kuretake No. 8 Fountain Brush Pen, are very similar in performance, so it would be a personal preference as to which one feels best in hand. As mentioned before, the Kuretake No. 8 is refillable and has actual brush bristles.

I made a Sugar Skull drawing so I could use all the colors in the 12 color Pentel Touch Sign Pen set that I purchased at Target after hearing about it on the Erasable Podcast. These pens are nice, and of course are just like the Pentel Touch Pen included in the JetPens sampler, only in colors. I think these would probably be good for hand lettering or writing in a journal. 

Next up in Create-A-Thon 2017 - Winsor and Newton Watercolor Brush Pens.

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Reeves Water Soluble Pastels

Week 14 - Reeves Water Soluble Pastels 24 color set purchased for $10.50 at The Queen's Ink in Savage, MD. Brenda and I decided to take a spur of the moment road trip down to the Historic Savage Mill so that I could make pinhole photos of the ruins beside the Little Patuxent River and the only remaining portion of a Bollman Truss Railroad Bridge. We found the art supply store in the Savage Mill shopping complex and they had a nice variety of supplies, mostly stamping and inks as the name would suggest.

Working with the pastels started off promising, when I made a drawing of bright red-orange springlike flowers. My next drawing of a Sunflower using a reference photo, was a bit more troublesome with it resembling a picture drawn with a box of crayons. And the last drawing did not work at all, not what I was envisioning of tentacles coming from the bottom of the page. I feel that my drawing skills were lacking for that one and that I was a bit tired before starting to work on it. Some of the colors did not blend at all when applying water, with a crayon type texture showing through.

I used the pastels on plain watercolor paper in a Strathmore Visual Watercolor Journal. I think I should have done a little more research for techniques on how to use water soluble pastels - I had watched a few YouTube videos and one in particular suggesting a base of Gesso to be applied to the paper first. I have to admit I was very busy this week with other creative and extracurricular activities, not leaving me much time to experiment with these. I may revisit them in the future and give them another try.

I also attended a live model figure drawing session on Sunday afternoon, and have been participating in the Sktchy30 drawing challenge using the Sktchy App, but I'm going to have to forego finishing the Sktchy challenge, my mind is mentally exhausted.

Next up in Create-A-Thon 2017 - drawing with a variety of brush pens.

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Mixed Media Art

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Week 13 - Mixed Media art made with watercolor wash, Derwent Aquatone Pencils, pocket brush pen, and white gel pen. I've explored this style before about a year ago, but I wanted to revisit the process and continue to create new pages in my visual art journal. 

To start I like to make a colorful background wash using an inexpensive set of Prang Professional Watercolor pans. I usually prepare a few pages with background washes ahead of time and then when I'm ready to work on one, I choose the best color background for the idea that I have. I then fill in the page with solid shapes of color with the Aquatone pencils, which become quite colorful when activated with water. When those are dry, I then add details with brush pen and white gel pen. I think I like the anatomy illustration the best of the three I completed this week. 

Next up - Reeves Water Soluble Pastels.

Painting With Coffee

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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.