play

gouache, colored pencil and ink

the other thing that i've been doing (besides figuring out what i want to do in te's book) is finishing up my pocket 'hand book'. i wanted to finish it before i leave next week so i can start fresh in a new book on my trip.

'the bard parker' really belongs farther down the post (chronologically speaking), but its bright colors demanded that it go at the top... it's a painting of the tool my dentist used in my mouth a few weeks ago. i may have exaggerated its size and shape, ha! but not much


my thoughts on the paper in the 'hand book' are that it's pretty good for just about all media, and really good for none. i didn't mind the buckling so much when using watercolors (and granted i'm not capable of 'light washes'), but i didn't like that it didn't take much paint before you could see the shadow of it on the other side. it's also a little too rough for colored pencils... oh you can use them, but they don't want to blend easily and tiny details may or may not work because of the subtle bumpiness of the paper.

i did do a lot of light colored pencil pages though, mostly because i liked the way the colored pencils worked on the pages better than watercolors, and they didn't show through on the other side of the page.


i got on a clothing jag... i think there's something really satisfying about drawing clothes without bodies in them.


i drew a lot of pale faces... practicing different things and seeing what happens to the expression when you do this or that.


glued some magazine pages in... i added an old stamp to the page on the left.


finally i decided that i'd just cover the pages up! ha! take that 'hand book' paper! the page on the right is from an old thesaurus that roxanne gave me... first i traced the shape of the page onto the old book page, cut it out, brushed gel medium on the back side and brayered onto the journal page.


i was off and running then!

instead of listing the 'ingredients' below each image, i'll just say here that i used some combination of gouache, watercolors, colored pencils, casein paint, and oil pastels on the rest of the pages. if you have any questions about a particular page, please ask! i'll post the answer in the comments section as well as in an e-mail...


i painted these pages after watching 'jean-michel basquiat: the radiant child'...


i'm painting with watercolors on top of oil pastels a lot on these pages... in the way that i learned to do with the creek people. i'm also using white gouache with wild abandon - it's like miracle stuff... this page was a map from an old atlas.


'alice' was painted after watching a documentary about alice neel's life. from now on the pages are covered with paper from an old wildflower book (pub. 1924).


this page and the one below were done only with colored pencils, and they don't show up well in the pics, but in person they're subtle and some of my favorites.


first i draw some things on the page, then i put down a very light layer of matte gel medium and draw again on that. liquitex matte gel medium creates a wonderful surface for colored pencils...


here i drew on the page with colored pencils, put a very thin layer of gel medium down, and then used watercolors and oil pastels...


same here...


behind each of these faces is the drawing of another person...


here's a page in progress... on the left is colored pencil directly on the page, and on the right is what i drew with colored pencils on the gel medium. then i must have put another layer of gel medium down (heh, i can't remember) ...


then i drew the face and painted it. for new readers, i draw with my left (non-dominant) hand...


this is a page from 'of cabbages and kings' (pub. 1902) that i glued in. the face is a stamp i carved and then painted over (heavily!). a lot of white gouache here... her hair had gone beyond repair, so white goauche to the rescue. she sorta looks like she just stepped out of the shower (except not really ).


this is what i'm working on now - gotta finish the bottom row...


this is the last thing glued into the book; she's on 100# bristol board that i got a few days ago. oh! colored pencil heaven!!


and the book itself! i took out the centerfolds of the last three signatures to make room for the added paper. it's puffed up, but not much... i only have a few pages left...

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It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.

~ camille pissarro

XO