Replacing the pencil outlines with G-pen ink
When I started the book, I imagined Jimmy Jay and Betty Burro running from the Monarch Butterfly sanctuary to Guadalajara. I got frustrated with the background and decided to just sketch the two of them running and move on. I would come back to finish the page later. It is now later.
My plan is to re-ink both characters, re-color them, and then add a jungle background.
Sketch
Vectorizing
I love pen and ink. This was a seven-minute sketch. Get a load of those ears!
Today was a cooking day: mushroom and barley soup, peanut butter cookies, and polenta crust pizza. All went well but the polenta doesn’t make a convincing crust. Let’s call it a mush pizza and be done with it.
All in all a refreshing day.
I’ve been looking through The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, a massive compendium of American newspaper comic that covers from 1860 to 1980. Comic artists were doing amazing stuff, all of it with pen and ink drawing colored with watercolor or gouache. All of this graphic richness inspired me to forage in the supply pantry for my neglected watercolor paints.
I used my Cotman paints on Alley Oop and my Daniel Smith paints on Betty Burro. Daniel Smith paints are more brilliant than the Cotman paints, but they’re both fine for what I’m doing. The workflow included scanning the painting then loading it into Krita for cleanup.
Watercolor is definitely scary. It takes a leap of faith to put the wet brush on the paper. There’s no going back.
Today’s chores, vacuuming and laundry, went smoothly. Every week I do the same chores and consistently get a sense of accomplishment from them that I rarely get from my art. When the house is vacuumed, it’s vacuumed. When the laundry is done, done. Art — my art a least — is never finished. Even though I pronounce it to be “finished”. I can always find something unfinished or mal-finished about it. My obstreperous art and its frustrations help me to be grateful for completing simple, manual tasks. Art is an unrelenting task master. The way things are going, I don’t expect to ever be able so say, “That is a perfect drawing.” Then again, one of the things I love about Art is that it will always be challenging, a mountain of unlimited height, always there, always alluring, always tempting, always elusive. That’s just the thing I’ve been looking for.
This partially inked page, #48, shows how I work. First I sketch a rough drawing, then ink it, photograph it, use Photoshop to resize and warp the image, then do the production inking in Clip Studio Paint. This process sounds ponderous but it works for me. I’ve always found sketching digitally to be difficult. It’s nice to have both traditional and digital tools.
Pentel Brush Pen with colors by Photoshop
In honor of the Al Fresco Art club, which has been on hiatus since the arrival of the new family member, Nacho the Pug, I held a little private solo session and drew a sleeping beauty with my Pentel Brush Pen. I used a reference photo for inspiration and attempted to capture a likeness, which I did not. I’m satisfied that I made something that looked human. When I was done with smearing ink around, I scanned the sketch with my A3 scanner, then added some colors and shadows in Photoshop.
Not much to say about today’s chores. All is quiet and very hot in Southern Oregon. Nacho the Pug has doubled in size and is now larger than Willy the Pomeranian. And, most of the injuries from my fall two weeks ago are on the mend. I can now get out of bed without screaming, which is a noticeable improvement. I will have to do some rehab for my torn back muscles. I should be back to normal functioning in a month or two.
Overall my mood has returned to my usual cockeyed optimism.
Drawn and painted with Rebelle 4
Today I’m feeling less overall pain in my upper back and left shoulder. I’ve been practicing a strict hang-loose treatment for my left arm, with no lifting of any kind, not even lifting my iPad Pro. Only when you have a bad shoulder do you realize how heavy “light” devices really are.
For the sketch above I used Rebelle 4’s fountain pen brush. For feel, it’s no match for my low-end Lamy fountain pen and some cheap drawing paper from a Big Box store. But, for speed and versatility, digital wins every time. On the other hand, for timelessness and original art, real ink wins every time. Fortunately, we live in an time when we can use both and love both digital and traditional tools. That abundance creates a problem for me: I get confused when I have too many chose. I need to be able to pick one tool and get really good at it.
Doodle car drawn with a 0.1mm Rotring Tikky and colored with Clip Studio Paint EX
Today the refrigerator stopped working and the temperature went up to 68. The freezer is still working, so not all is lost. I made a call to the local home maintenance guru. I’m hoping he calls back. Things like call backs are sometimes forgotten around here. Why that is, I do not know.
