Black and White Outing

I had a chance to sit and sketch one of my favorite oak trees in the Bay Area. It is sandwiched between some lovely Eichler homes. And it was a bright, cheerful day when kids went back to school and parents were walking past me exchanging all kinds of sentiments about the season. I thought about a need to refill my pentel pocket brush pen and how time is experienced differently by different beings. Feel the feels - whatever is the season. 

Oh - and these olive trees were a beautiful addition to that outing! Photos of the process - below.

Recent December tradition: Portrait Party with the Art School of the Future

I am a big fan of the art and art teaching that Rama Hughes brings into this world. You might know that he is the main force behind the Art School of the Future and his daily sketch diary is a (wonderfully consistent and often inspiring inquiries) part of my media diet :)

I've been a part of Rama's portrait party wagon for some time now but it gets better and better with time. This year I decided to see what will happen if I bring my printmaking tools to the timed portrait making and I had a blast! All the one-minute poses were done with either a pen or a brush pen. But all the five-minute poses were done with a pentel pocket brush pen filled with black ink and my stencils/printmaking kit.

What happened to my pine cone?

I picked up a wonderful pine cone on a lovely hike. It was a long day and I took some photos and left it on my table overnight... and in the morning it was a different pine cone! 

I drew it in my sketchbook. And then I added an overlay and drew it from a photo - as it was before. Because this is a gouache page and might smudge a bit. But mainly because I was still not over the change that happened overnight! 

Orange spread in my sketchbook

Orange is one of my favorite colors. This, in addition to the fact that some of my favorite fruits are orange in color, means that this time of the year my sketchbook has lots of orange in it. This was an orange spread and some additional orange sketches sprinkled through my sketchbook: persimmons and tangerines (or mandarins?)! (oranges and carrots are next ;)

I painted these as large silhouettes with black ink and pentel pocket brush and then used gouache to add color, with some pencil over for additional tiny marks.

And these are some close-ups and details of more persimmons and tangerines - mostly painted with me CMYK pens (pentel pocket brushes filled with colorful inks:)

Persimmons and CMYK experiments with Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

The persimmon season is here and I attack the fruit with my brushes and pens as much as I do with my teeth! Below are some that I scanned already - but there is one sketch I would like to start with:

This image is made with the experimental technique that both Suhita Shirodkar and I are playing with. A limited palette of primary colors (pigmented Higgins inks - Carmine Red, Yellow, and Blue) filled in a pre-cleaned partridge of the pentel pocket brush pens. Plus the standard black cartridge.  

These are water-proof, pretty flat colors that are lovely in little quantities on a page filled with other things but might bore you to death on large surfaces. However, if you add some dynamics with water sprayed on the page, wet mixing, with the dilution of inks, overlaying colors, and using them with pointillism technique varying patterns and brushstrokes - the results are a lot of fun! 

I encourage you to look at what Suhita is making here: More on that triad of inks

Right now I dilute both blue and red - the current proportion is 40% ink, and 60% water but I think I will go to 30:70 on the next refill. Also, I am going to make purple and, possibly, orange pens as stand-alone tools - but continue playing with the CMYK separately. The illustration of these adventures are not scanned yet - so here are some persimmons done with acrylic markers, watercolors, and ink.