Day 1 of a 365 day learning project

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I’ve been mulling over doing a “project.” The project is simply to practice what I need to learn in order to do a children’s book. I have high hopes and grand aspirations, and slim skills. The project, which I’ve signed a contract to complete, is to practice what I need to know everyday for one hour even if I don’t feel like it, even if I’m tired, bored, sick, anxious, impatient, and so on.

So what about this “contract” I’ve signed? Of course, the contracting partner is the part of myself that’s lazy, tired, sick, anxious, and impatient. In other words, it’s a promise to myself. Sure, I've made promises to myself before and then given up when things got tough. And now, in this case, I want to learn how to do pen and ink and watercolor painting even though I know that watercolor painting is the hardest kind of painting in the universe. So be it—that’s the path I’ve chosen. I’ve signed a contract, and today I’m delivering the first installment.

Looks like gouache instead of watercolor. I’m working on it. The Speedball ink seems to dry slowly. There are a couple of spots where the watercolor made the soft ink run. Impatience strikes again.

Drawing, tracing, lightboxing, inking, and painting

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Tracing happily away, unaware that tempestuous watercolor gods are about to teach me a lesson in humility.

Today I decided to try my nib pens. I’ve had them for years and I’ve played with them now and then, made a big mess, and then decided they weren’t for me. But I really love pen and ink drawings, and lately I’ve been obsessed with Hergé and Hal Foster, both supreme masters of the inky line.

I created a pencil drawing, traced it with a liner pen, used the lightbox to then trace it onto some Strathmore Visual Journal bristol vellum paper, the painted it with watercolor. All went well except for the watercolor. I’m a brute with a watercolor brush. When I tried to lift some color using a paper towel, the paper started to disintegrate.

So, the lesson again, is be gentle, patient, and treat your paper kindly.

Keep the washes thin and let them dry completely before glazing another layer. And don’t rub the paper, at least not the Strathmore Visual Journal bristol vellum.


Clear line anyone? Ecoline?

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I’ve been reading about Hergé today and ligne claire. So I got out my Pentel Pocket Brush and my Ecoline watercolors and had at it. I learned one more time that things that look easy are hard. My 10,000 hours of practice have just begun. I figure that with 2 hours a day to practice at the end of the year I’ll have 730 hours. Nice. Only 9,170 hours to go before I can lay down a real clear line. Fortunately, I’m a patient and persistent man, and I’m happy just to be playing with paint, paper, and ink.

Today’s work. Oh, by the way, I’m going to be posting my daily projects for 365 days straight. Why? Because I signed a contract to move forward at least one inch a day. I’ll have to post that contract some day.

Redo with lightbox, pen and ink, & watercolor

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Today my commitment to myself was to get out the light box and pencil trace yesterday’s watercolor of the jay in the chimney, ink it, then transfer the image to watercolor paper using the lightbox. I then dressed the inked watercolor paper up with watercolor. After all this old-school processing, I digitized the watercolor painting by scanning it and importing it into Photoshop.

Here’s how it turned out. The dark background was added in Photoshop.

One more thing… I’m signing all of my images now on the off chance that any images posted in Pinterest will give interested folks a way to find the original source, doukat.com.