Jimmy Jay meets Buddy Butterfly

/

44/365

Here’s another version of Jimmy meeting his friend Buddy. I’m trying out Buddy’s color scheme and wing markings. I’m considering this painting another inch forward towards my March 31 deadline that’s looming on the horizon. I now have 61 days to finish this. It sounds like a lot, but with only a couple of hours a days, I’m going to hustle. Getting this book finished is a big deal.

I haven’t got a finalized page yet and I’m feeling the pressure. To cite my favorite metaphysical poet, Andrew Marvell,

“But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity. ”

Enough poetry!

I didn’t forget Jimmy Jay’s nose this time.

Creating a butterfly character

/

43/365

I’ve been drawing butterflies without considering what a real butterfly looks like. I’ve seen thousands of Monarch butterflies, but when I draw the wing marking from memory, I’m really only guessing. To correct my ignorance, I got a picture of a Monarch and studiously drew the wings with the correct number of orange and black panels and even added the little white dots the I didn’t even know existed.

I ran out of time and thought about doing Buddy’s colors in Photoshop, but the thought made me weary. I’m going to do the coloring tomorrow.


The Monarch Butterflies Arrive in Ashland

/

42/365

Today’s painting shows Momma Jay and Jimmy welcoming the Monarchs to Ashland. I’ve never seen a mass migration of Monarch butterflies here, but once Fall arrives, we get quite a few of these handsome beings as they pass through Southern Oregon on their way to the warm South. You may notice that one butterfly in the picture has a very human head. That’s got to be Buddy Butterfly, soon to be Jimmy’s best friend.

Since the iMac has been hung up all day failing to install Mojave, I’m working on my Windows laptop and using the free Gimp image editor. Any port in a storm I say.

No grisaille today. The more I experiment with watercolor over a gray under-layer, the drearier it looks. The muted colors are too much of a downer for children’s books, at least in my hands. Continuing to practice with this style isn’t going to move me toward my March 31 deadline.

Love those Monarch Butterflies. Of course, they’re looking for a milkweed snack.

Got a new A3 scanner and it works great

/

41/365

If I wanted to, I could scan two pages of an 8.5x11 book like Watson-Guptil’s Rendering in Pen and Ink book in one swoop.

After years of trying to compress 9x12 sketchbook pages into an 8.5x11 scanner, I broke my piggy bank and bought an A3 graphic arts scanner, a Plustek A320L. This scanner is quite husky and demands a good chunk of space on my desk. The only oddity I encountered in setting it up was that the drivers came on a CD and my iMac doesn’t have a CD-ROM. The software is also downloadable from the Plustek site. Problem solved.

To compare the scan quality of my new scanner to my ancient HP combo printer/scanner, I rescanned one of my old paintings that obviously had not scanned well, the painting of Jimmy and Buddy meeting for the first time in the poppy patch. The original scan’s color was way off. I was hoping my new scanner would do a better job. It did, a lot better.

For both scanners I used the basic twain scanner interface that’s built into the OSX System Settings -> Printers & Scanners.

Scanned with the new A3 Plustek A320L. Notice the subtle blues in the sky.

Scanned with HP PhotoSmart Plus B209. Notice the blues are faded and skewed toward cyan.

Quick sketch of Jimmy Jay channeling Keanu

/

40/365

A busy day with my square job annoyingly cut into my drawing time. Rather than doing something lazy, such as posting a picture of my new A3-size scanner, I thought I’d do a quick iPad sketch. This upward-facing view is a first attempt at drawing a “Keanu”, the Keanu standing in the rain in “Break Point” howling a grief-stricken “NOOOOOOO!” to the indifferent heavens.

All digital today with no regrets or self-recriminations.

A quick sketch that’s telling me to work on my up-nose perspective skills. And foreshortened hands, too.

Action line with Jimmy Jay trying to rescue Buddy Butterfly

/

39/365

I’ve take drawing classes that emphasize that a character needs an “action line” in order to be dynamic and interesting. Unfortunately, it seems that my characters usually don’t have anything like a gesture or action line. Today’s drawing reverses that trend. I intentionally drew Jimmy with what I hoped was an action line as he’s leaping to try to keep his friend from being sucked down a chimney.

Why did I put Aeolus up in the left hand corner? Because everyone know that he’s in charge of making the wind blow. Besides, I like the antique versions of Aeolus with puffy cheeks blowing those gusty winds at poor Buddy. I think he looks mean, but there has to be a villain in the story. He’s a good one.

I’m still going with grisaille for this painting.

A Jaybird and a Butterfly Play Poker

/

38/365

Another grisaille. This time Jimmy and Buddy are playing poker, it seems. I’m not much of a card player, but I do know that four queens is a good hand. Too bad for Jimmy, but Buddy has four aces. I know because that’s the story I wrote in my head.

One thing wrong with this picture that I’m thinking of: I forgot to add Jimmy nose. Even at this year 3/4 view his honker would be prominent. This drawing, painting, and processing, and writing this post, took about 1 1/2 hours. I was hustling.

Momma Jay in grisaille

/

37/365

And now Momma Jay. She’s looking a little tired here after all the business with Jimmy Jay and the chimney. I can hardly blame her. I watched Steven Reddy’s Bluprint course called Dynamic Detail in Pen, Ink,& Watercolor. I’ve got my 1-ounce bottles, my Rotring Tikky and Uni-ball Vision pens, my Rapidograph ink, and my Canson Montval All-Media art books, and now I’m working to get the hang of ink washes.

Today I thought I’d show Momma Jay at the local beanery staring down a heavy duty cup of espresso. I wanted a foreground, middle ground, and background. Overall I’m happy that today’s drawing is a one-inch improvement over yesterday’s. Next time I’ll work to get the foreground object popping a little more.

I can see that I didn’t mix my 50% and 100% washes quite dark enough. I resorted to using Photoshop to pump up the contrast and clean up some errant drops of ink.

I’m trying to keep about 50% of the page white. My darks could be a little darker, and I’m going to work on drawing daintier hands for Momma.

More turn-arounds for my imaginary character, Jimmy Jay

/

35/365

I’m learning how to apply ink washes and glaze them with watercolor. Today, it being Sunday, I thought I’d have oodles of time to do turnarounds for all of the characters in my children’s book; Jimmy Jay, Momma Jay, Jenny Jay (I keep changing her name), and Buddy Butterfly. It didn’t happen. As usual I grossly underestimated how much time I have and how speedily I can draw and paint.

I did get Jimmy’s turnaround done. The front view is the least pleasing because his beak/nose is completely flattened, and the back view doesn’t say much. I don’t think I’ll ever use that view.

I’m converting my sketchbook to a journal/diary. Since I’m learning something new everyday, I need to write notes and comments so I’ll remember what color I used when I painted a picture. These days my drawings and paintings 100% for for practice. Finished pieces seem to be on the distant horizon.

As for my supplies, they’re the same as yesterday. I see that semi-opaque Cerulean Blue Chrome covers the line work. I’m leaning toward Phthalo Blue GS for the bird characters.

A grisaille version of the chimney house

/

34/365

Grisaille: In fine art, the term grisaille most commonly refers to a monochrome painting technique by which a painting or drawing is executed exclusively in shades of grey. For a contemporary example, see Picasso’s Guernica.

I’ve drawn the house with the chimney that birds get trapped in dozens of times, and here it is again. I followed the grisaille process that Steven Reddy teaches in his book “Everyday Sketching & Drawing”. I sketched from a reference photo, inked it with a Uni-ball Vision pen, gave it 3 washes of watered-down black ink, then watercolored it. I like this friendly style, and I like that the picture looks finished when it’s in it’s grisaille black and white state. Adding watercolor is the icing on the cake. As Steven Terry mantra goes, “Black and white does the work; color gets the credit.”

My materials for the drawing: Uni-Ball Vision pen with black ink, Canson Montval All-Media sketchbook (best price at DickBlick.com), Daniel Smith Ultimate Mixing Palette, and a Robert Simmons 1/4 inch flat brush.

The grisaille version.

The grisaille version.