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| Click on image to view larger. |
A peek at the start of a new project, as part of The
Sketchbook Project; you can view my post about this here.
I drew these with a Pitt Artist pen outside (sitting on a
lumpy rock!), then back inside to a comfortable chair for lettering and adding color with my water-soluble pencils. The paper is a nice bright white, and
beautifully smooth. The ink goes on like
silk, with no noticeable bleeding or penetrating (so far). My watercolor pencils worked nicely, picking
up a light texture from the paper - however, too much water is a no-no which resulted in wrinkled pages. I’ll have to pay attention to find that fine
line between just enough and too much water from my waterbrush!
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| Click on image to view larger. |
The details:
The Sketchbook Project book is from Scoutbooks.com, but I couldn’t
find out any information on the paper.
Ink: Pitt Artist pen
in black, size XS for the sketch, and S for the text.
Watersoluble media: Kimberly watercolor pencils (you can
read about my set here), and Inktense by Derwent.
Brush: Niji
Aquabrush, small size.
The subjects:
I’ve written about both of these two lovely plants that are
blooming right now in south Florida, so I won’t repeat myself! If you’d like to read about the Florida butterfly
orchid, please visit my post from last year. Here is a link to
the post from 2010, which also shows a honeybee and its funny pollen “hat” that I
observed while drawing.
You can find the beach sunflower post here. I started these
from seed several months ago, and they are doing extremely well in a dry and
sandy spot that nothing wanted to grow in before now. The seeds took a VERY long time to germinate
(or perhaps I’m an impatient gardener), but I’m glad they did. The flowers lift my spirits every time I see
them!
The cover:
Oh - and if you'd like to see what I've done with the cover so far, I wrapped it in a recycled and crumpled Tyvek envelope (blank side to the outside), and painted it with some leftover latex paint. Wiping the paint with a damp paper towel removes enough to reveal the random fibers in the Tyvek, which add a lot of texture and interest. The two colors I used were an "old gold" and a tobacco brown; leaving on more of the gold, and wiping off more of the brown. The last step was a seal coat with a matte acrylic medium. I've found the Tyvek to be extremely durable as a sketchbook cover; even the wear marks add to the beauty.
Oh - and if you'd like to see what I've done with the cover so far, I wrapped it in a recycled and crumpled Tyvek envelope (blank side to the outside), and painted it with some leftover latex paint. Wiping the paint with a damp paper towel removes enough to reveal the random fibers in the Tyvek, which add a lot of texture and interest. The two colors I used were an "old gold" and a tobacco brown; leaving on more of the gold, and wiping off more of the brown. The last step was a seal coat with a matte acrylic medium. I've found the Tyvek to be extremely durable as a sketchbook cover; even the wear marks add to the beauty.
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| Back and front of the sketchbook. |
There may be more to come regarding the cover - time will tell! In the past I've used acrylic paint on my handmade sketchbook covers; if you'd like to see some examples, please visit my Flickr set here.
Click on images above to view them larger.
Thanks for visiting!
