Roz Wound Up

Journaling Superstitions #11: You Must Keep Your Watercolor Palette Clean

Above: a closeup of my Schmincke pan watercolor palette (these pans are factory filled with Schmincke paints). This is one of several watercolor and gouache palettes that I use at various times depending on the paints I want to use. I selected this palette for the today because I think it clearly shows how individual pans are getting “contaminated” from my brush while working, shows the spatter of colors in the channels between the pans, from quick working, and shows a fun mix of “turkey” brown (blue and orange) with individual pigments still visible. (The palette working space is something I typically clean off at the end of a working session.)

I’m not saying that everyone who has a pristine palette doesn’t use it, but in several decades of teaching I will tell you that every student who comes through one of my classes with a clean palette is more hung up on doing things “perfectly,” or not messing up his paints, or not contaminating his colors, than he is concerned with painting, with creating. It becomes something those students have to work through if they are actually going to spend more time painting than worrying about rules, or perfect palettes, or a myriad of non-painting things.

Minnesota State Fair Prep—Part 4: "Travel" Essentials for Sketchers

 

Above: This photo from a talk I gave about sketching at the Minnesota State Fair, shows MORE stuff than what you'll actually need. Read below for the break down. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

This is part four of the Minnesota State Fair Prep Series, started August 12, 2009.

What you carry with you when you go to the Minnesota State Fair can either help or hinder your fun. The goal is to travel as light as possible. Since I go primarily to sketch animals I have sketching tools and paper to deal with (more on these items in a minute). But there are other essentials that will ensure you have a good trip to the Fair.

Trying Out some Watercolors from Daniel Smith

 

Above: color test swatches of three new Daniel Smith watercolor paints I purchased: Serpentine Genuine, Rhodonite Genuine, Transparent Red Oxide. Click on the image to view an enlargement. (Tab in gutter: when I start a journal I remove pages throughout it immediately, to allow space for collage.)

Note: Daniel Smith Watercolors are my preferred brand, the brand I use the most frequently, enjoy using the most, find the most vibrant and consistently well-made, etc. While I use a fairly limited number of colors in my typical travel palette I often look at additional colors to use for expanded palette situations, or as replacements.

The other day I stopped by Wet Paint in St. Paul and picked up a couple Daniel Smith watercolors I hadn’t tried before. I had been reading a lot about the Rhodonite, was curious about the Transparent Red Oxide, and, well when I saw the Serpentine Genuine I just had to have a tube (and I do not like green paint!)

Being Happy with the Little Bits—or Keep on Pushing to See Where It Goes: Part Three

Above: Third sketch in the series, this is painted directly with a no. 8 round and cadmium yellow light and ultramarine blue Lukas gouache. The notes were added at the end of the painting session after the fourth (not shown) sketch was completed and relate to that fourth sketch. The tab at the gutter—I remove a certain number of pages from each new journal when I begin it; to make room for collage material. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

This is part three of a 4-part series which started Monday, June 15.

Having used the Faber Castell Pitt Artist Brush pen for the previous two quick sketches I decided to work directly with a  no. 8 watercolor round. It was a synthetic without much of a tip left, but I didn’t want to get up and find a better brush, I just wanted to keep working.

More on Schmincke Pan Watercolors

Above: Another "chart" I made when testing Schmincke pan watercolors in December 2007. I'm mixing new selections with colors already on my palette. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I thought it might be helpful for people to see the other types of tests I put watercolors through when making a selection for my palette, so I have included in this post two additional "charts." I put charts in quotation marks because I am not trying to make a formal, tidy, structured chart for the most part when I do these tests, I'm just interested in blending colors together and seeing what happens. A lot of artists I know take a much more orderly approach to these types of tests and put them into columns and boxes and apply a lot of order. While I love order probably more than the next person I'm happy to just get in there and mix. I think each artist has to do what is most useful to him. (My colored pencil charts are extremely orderly!)

My Schmincke Pan Watercolor Palette

Above: A color chart of the selection in my Schmincke travel palette. This chart is on a page in an 11 x 7.5 inch journal I made with Arches 140 lb. cold press watercolor paper. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Today on the Official International Fake Journal Month Blog I posted another spread from this year's journal and wrote about how I am experimenting with these Schmincke colors. I thought people reading this blog might be interested in that post and other folks might like to see swatches of the colors mentioned.

Disaster and a New Rule

Above: Chihuahua study from my current journal. (Right side cropped off page spread in scan; journal is approx. 6.5 x 8.5 inches). Velin Arches (Arches Text Wove) paper. Pre-painted background of Pearl Ex stamp ink. Sketch made with Pentel Pocket Brush Pen (most pen lines are not visible because of the gouache; just some at the nose and coming through on the forehead, top). Schmincke Gouache applied with a Niji Waterbrush. Click on image for an enlargement.

Disaster: no, it's not that my zinc white on my small travel palette became contaminated with blue and I couldn't get any bright whites. Heck I could have walked into another room and squeezed out some fresh paint. I kind of like the way the colors are off.

More on Cretacolor Aqua Briques

Alberto over at Lung Sketching Scrolls (a sketch blog of sci-fi sketches and art supplies reviews) wrote in to me yesterday to say he had also reviewed Cretacolor Aqua Briques on his blog on February 27. He was kind enough to say he thought my review more thorough. But I went over to his site to see how he was using this product and I think he's plenty thorough! In fact I think you should go over to his site and scroll down to February 27 and look at his post. He has PHOTOS!

I gave my set of Aqua Briques away in 2006 and never thought to take photos of the mess they had become in three short drawing sessions. Alberto has vivid and clear photos of what happens to these blocks of pigment. Go check his photos and product comments out before you invest in this product.

Warm Ups

Left: First of three sketches of the same subject shown here to emphasize the benefits of warming up. See below for a second version, a detail from the second version, and a third version. Click on the image for an enlargement.

Today was an interesting adventure without cable access. I forget how dependent I am on it until it dies (if only for about 5 hours). For awhile it looked as if I wouldn’t be able to post. I wasn’t even worried about that until a friend I called during a break mentioned it and suggested I go to a cafe and use internet access. Something to think about for the future. (I don’t drink coffee so I don’t spend much time in such places, but it’s good to remember them. Actually I just thought of an ice cream store that has internet access. That would be a good idea.)

Time is short now, but I did want to post, and what better to post but a bit of cheerleading; a reminder to warm up and keep working. The first effort might look bad when we sit down and begin to work, but it does get better (I really like my third version, it actually is starting to look like the person!)

Looking at Acrylics: A New Book

I’m prone to some of the oddest impulse buys. I’m not talking about the recent purchase at the Franklin Street Bakery of a “twinkette” (the cake of which was too dense, ditto the cream and chocolate covering, yeah, yeah, even the chocolate covering; but their croissant-dough cinnamon rolls were a little taste of near-Paris!), I’m talking about books. I can’t help myself when it comes to certain books, books on topics I think I should, or would someday need to know stuff about, which means basically everything.

Well the other day at Wet Paint I saw Rethinking Acrylic: Radical Solutions for Explaining the World’s most Versatile Medium, by Patti Brady, on the shelf across the counter and asked to see it. Once it was in my hands I just had to have it. (A friend alerted me to Brady's website after I mentioned my find. I still don't remember to look for these things!)

Now I'll just say, I rarely work in acrylics (see my bird-a-day project for an example of what I do with acrylics) but I do enjoy playing with it—they provide me a way of working loose. What I do is not, however, the extreme abstract type of work that is featured in much of this book. (I say “extreme” and give myself away as someone who loves representational art, and I will not apologize for this; but while it will be a long day coming before I turn to abstract work I do enjoy seeing what other folks are doing.)