Left: An animated gif of a bird sketch I made in my journal recently. Wait 8 seconds and the image will switch to the painted version, and 8 seconds more and it will switch back to the line work, etc. Or that's the theory. I've worked out that if I click on it so that it enlarges the screen changes, but I'll check when it goes live. If it still doesn't work scroll down to the end of the post to see the full spread which shows the finished painting. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
I was out and about in town the other day without my journal so I was sketching on little bits of paper and did the sketch of the woman you'll see in the full page spread image at the end of this post.
Then when I pasted it in at home I wanted to do more sketching and painting so I got out some photos I'd taken of birds in an aviary at a nursing home. I threw them up on my computer screen (which is large) and started sketching. I was using a fresh, juicy .5 Staedtler Pigment Liner and you can see there is a variety of line thickness you can get with that pen.
I really loved the line drawing so I took a moment to photograph it before I went ahead with the painting. I wanted to paint it in part to help it stand out against the purple strip (stamp ink). I had deliberately started my sketch so a portion of the bird would extend onto the color strip, but it would have worked better if I had positioned the bird a little more either to the left or the right. I find the beak split right at the "forehead" too distracting.
I used gouache for the painting. I used dilute washes in most areas because I wanted to let the lines (which I was in love with) show through.
This is in a 7 x 9 inch journal I bound with Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media paper.
Below: The full page spread. Before arriving at this spread I had prepainted the spread with rubberstamp ink. I had taped off sections of the page to paint them purple. The large purple rectangle on the left page (which bleeds off the top, bottom and fore edge of that page) would have been perfect as the background of a sketch. (I use Brilliance Ink and it drys waterproof, or at least I have found it water resistant.) Instead, it became the perfect place to put one of my paper scraps that I've been sketching on (because I have a shoulder problem and am not carrying my journal right now). The tab in the gutter is from a pre-cut page. When I start a new journal I cut out pages throughout the journal. This makes room for any collage material I may add later. I often attach things to these tabs, or paint right across them. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
