Jeff’s Blog

EDM Challenge #12 is “Draw what you ate for dinner.”  I don’t think anyone wants to see what that looks like at this very moment, so I did the next best thing and drew the ingredients.  In truth, I didn’t use the pasta sauce.  I just threw a little olive oil, basil, and garlic powder over the spaghetti.  It’s actually got more fat and calories than the pasta sauce, but boy is it tasty.

Anyway, I wasn’t going for any sort of realism here; just playing with a PITT pen and some watercolors.  This is the first time I’ve been able to get any sort of vibrancy out of the paints, so I’m happy with that.  And the composition isn’t terrible.

My lines got a little out of control in a couple of spots.  I didn’t realize until after I scanned this that everything is skewed a little off-vertical.  All those years of keeping my wallet in the same back pocket must be catching up to me.

I’m really starting to consider laying down a pencil underdrawing before I drop in the ink on these.  But tonight was really about forcing my butt up off the couch and spending a little time with the sketchbook.  Every little bit helps, right?

I probably should have worked a little more shadow into the side of the pasta box.  There’s really no visual cue about the direction of light at all other than the small ground shadow.

And I picked entirely the wrong red for the pasta sauce.  But the only other red I have is Alizarin Crimson, and I wanted to try to stay with a purely transparent, non-staining pallet (only three colors here: Rose Madder Genuine, Cobalt Blue, and Aureolin); which did come in really handy when some of the red bled into not-red territory.

Color mixing is a real weak point for me.  I know I should make some color wheels and do some paint chips, but that is so boring and tedious, I’m not sure I could bring myself to do it.  I know I’ll have to do it at some point, but I can feel my back tighten up just thinking about it.

I don’t know what it is about food-related subjects, but I seem to have an obsession with them.  Here’s another rendition of the eggs I sketched in pen & ink last week.  I think this one came out quite a bit nicer.

Ever since I got my watercolor kit, I’ve been disappointed by the quality of the color — they just don’t seem as vibrant as I want them to be.  I’ve been wondering if that is because (a) they are dried pan colors, (b) they are student-grade paints (the Cotman line from Winsor & Newton), (c) I don’t know what I’m doing, or (d) all of the above.  So I decided I would try artist-grade watercolor from a tube.

Because artist-grade watercolors are not cheap, and because I didn’t know how much of my problem was related to the paint, I didn’t want to break the bank on a whole pallet full of new colors.  One tube would be enough to experiment with.

I chose lamp black.  Yeah, yeah, I know… you aren’t supposed to use black from a tube.  But it was a color that I didn’t already have in my pallet, and it seemed like a good color to play with while I decide whether I’m going to splurge on some “real” colors.

Here’s what I found:

First, while it is true that I don’t quite know what I’m doing, it turns out that the consistency of paint from a tube is very different from the consistency of reconstituted pan paint.  Again, this might be due to the difference in artist-grade paint vs. student-grade paint; but the difference is akin to the difference between basketballs and bellybuttons.

Second, the paint from the tube is vibrant.  It is easy to get good variations from the lightest light to darkest dark.  I’ve never had this kind of positive experience with my pan paints.

Third, even though it seems like you are spending a fortune on paint ($7 for a tiny 5ml tube), you use a surprisingly small amount of paint.  This egg painting is 5.5 x 8.5 inches, and the amount of paint I used would fit comfortably on the head of a roofing nail.

As excited as I am about what I’ve learned from this little experiment, I won’t be racing out to replace all my paints just yet.  Now that I’ve seen what the consistency of my paint should be like, I’ve got a lot more experimenting to do to see if I can get that same consistency out of my pans (if you’ve got any tips, post ‘em in the comments).

What better way to beat the cold than to “Think Warm”?  In this case, I’m thinking Jamaica, mon.

I gave myself a couple of days off.  I desperately needed the break.  Tonight’s effort was not exactly a triumphant comeback (it is almost bedtime after all), but I kinda like it.

I was thinking about adding a pen-and-ink outline; but given the amount of color, I think it may actually distract.  I just wish I could get a little more contrast out of my watercolors.  I wonder how much of this has to do with using the back side of the watercolor paper (yes, I know I’m being a cheapskate!)?

Media: Cotman watercolors and B pencil.