Process for Teatime

I've been thinking a lot about the process that I go through for creating a piece (in this case, it's going to be a gouache painting); I'm still fairly fluid in this and haven't nailed down a specific method yet, but it goes a little like this:

First I start with an idea. I really, really love tea and was thinking about the phrase "tea adventure". After thumbnailing a few compositional ideas (I initially wanted this to be a landscape piece), I felt that this one worked the best, so I fleshed it out a bit more (this was originally done in red pencil, which I'm really liking at the moment, then scanned in grayscale to further work with.)

Then I move into a value study. Well, I sort of cheat when I'm working digitally and switch back and forth from color to value while I work, so I can tweak things as I go- I do this by placing a layer filled with white on top and setting it to "color" mode- then toggling it on and off.

Here are the various color studies that I went through; these are more fine tweaking, since I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do, but I spent a lot of time waffling with the sky and clouds, since I wanted them to stand off the background a little without distracting from the mice. This is the best part about working in Photoshop- it takes little to no time to change small things.

You might also notice that the last two have a bit more detail than the first two- I wanted to add as much of the detail that I would have in the actual painting, including texture.

Time to get to work! I want to try out cutting the shapes out with film and using various brush and sponge techniques to give my work a little more texture, much like the great Scott Wills, who painted many of the backgrounds for Samurai Jack.

Wish me luck!

Air Mail Delivery!

6" x 8", Ink on Watercolor Paper

I was experimenting with animals and aviation the other day (you know, like you do), and this little guy appeared!

I used ink on Fluid Watercolor Paper block, which I used for the first time; I think the most interesting aspect is that while it is indeed a block, it's only adhered on two of the four sides, which amounts to a slight bit of buckling, but for the price (I think I paid around $6.00 or so), it's really a steal for small sketches or doodles. It also has a quite pleasing texture- not as rough as Arches, but more like Fabriano. I like it!

Spacegirl and Bird Thing

 
This summer has been quite different for me so far- it's the first time in several years that I haven't been taking classes, so I'm just experimenting with various techniques and ideas on my own time!

This one started out as a doodle of a girl on a rocket-scooter, and slowly developed into a young explorer unaware of her close follower! I was mostly using the lasso tool for shapes.

It's terrific living in a town with so many art store options; my hometown had pretty much just a Michael's and an AC Moore, and I often ended up having to order things online. But no more! There's a Blick store, Utrecht, and the school's bookstore, which also has a ton of stuff and an adorable little cafe in the back. It's so nice to know that there's really not a whole lot that I can't find these days.