Coming up in June: #30x30DirectWatercolor2019
Where did all the #30×30 posts go?!?
I’ve moved everthing from #30x30DirectWatercolor to its own page.
Click Here – or – go to the tab #30x30DirectWatercolor on the navigation bar.
Thanks!
Original Post:
It’s almost time again for #30x30DirectWatercolor2019. The annual event where we celebrate the speed and power of Direct Watercolor by making 30 paintings in 30 days in the month of JUNE 2019.
I’m sure most of you remember how this works, but let’s do a quick recap how simple it is:
- PAINT 30 watercolors in 30 days, from June 1-30, 2019.
- SHARE your paintings in our new Facebook group <HERE (We’d like to centralize the discussion around this group, to spare our usual sketching clubs all the extra traffic this might create :)
- HASHTAG work on your own social pages with: #30x30DirectWatercolor2019. Here are some FAQs on how to use hashtags: FB | IG | Twitter.
Forward momentum is the key. You’ll surprise yourself when you push past caring if the work is ‘good’. Or if anyone else likes it. Or if you’re using the right colors. Or getting the perspective right.
All these things fall by the wayside when you’re working intensely. Showing up in front of the paper day after day. Past the halfway, your subconscious starts dreaming about painting. When you come back the next day, the paint just flows.
So get ready – buy a stack of paper – and we’ll see you in June!
~m
#OneWeek100People2019 Comes to a Close
Thanks to everyone who participated! If you want to see everyone’s success stories – check out our Facebook group.
From past experience I know people will stay in the group all year – so feel free to join even now that it’s over.
I won’t be moderating over there till next year – but I’m already thinking about what kind of project I might try for 2020. I’ll be looking to line up a more intensive reportage of some kind. Something to sink my teeth into :)
Take care till the next adventure: #30x30DirectWatercolor2019!!! (Coming up in June).
#OneWeek100People2019 Day Five: Play Time!
On the fifth day, I just messed around.
I was clearly not going to reach the 100 goal with what I’ve been doing the last few days – so – I gave myself a pass and just played today.
Clearly, I’ve been out of synch this #OneWeek100People2019.
But it isn’t about me anymore! It’s about the other 1500 sketchers in the FB group! – and I know people have been having a great time over there :)
It’s very interesting how a project I set up to be fun and games – back when sketching was king – becomes so hard for me, now that I’m thinking about oil painting all the time. Very eye-opening. You don’t always know your own mind (apparently). I didn’t anticipate how hard it is for me to change topics.
So what’s a fellow to do!
Seems like the best idea is – paint something FUN :) :)
And start thinking about how to redeem myself next time!
Model Credits: @laceferatu, @rinrindoll, @voodoodolly, @itsvanillabear, @wistywish.
I hope you had a great time with #OneWeek100People2019.
I’ve been following along all the posts on the Facebook page, and I hope to hear from all of you how your week turned out! Thanks for playing our little game :)
~Marc
#OneWeek100People2019 Day Four: Acrylic Paintings
Artistic inspiration is a funny thing.
I wasn’t planning on making acrylic paintings for #OneWeek100People2019. But after a couple days of my watercolors, I was moping around going – hmmmm what next? More of the same? I would learn something if I did it. But hmmmmmmm. I don’t want to waste time repeating myself. (Even though, I know I should! Refinement comes from repetition! You are *literally* watching me not take my own medicine).
But, I’m thinking – something is missing…
Oh right!
I’ve been doing opaque painting for the last (many) months. That’s what’s missing.
I know! I have all these acrylics left over from my student-days.
Out comes the big tubs of paint and the old hog’s hair brushes for a whirlwind painting session. I should have stopped at round one. It’s kind of interesting in the half-finished state :)
I was hoping to get seven acrylic paintings in a day to match my practice in watercolor – but this first attempt took me five hours! Clearly – watercolor is the faster medium.
I think a big part of this 5 hour piece was mixing color. I whipped up a few batches of color – just adding a hue when I needed it, until I had a bit of a fleshcolor palette.
There’s seven colors here – a yellow, a green/grey and three values of magenta, then two warm darks.
For portraits, I think it’s best to mix your major colors in advance, then intermix as you work. Rather than putting out globs of primaries and trying to mix a new hue every few brush-loads. Re-mixing all the time is A: very slow, and B: too hard to match your own colors later in the piece.
So – start with creating the major values in the image, then inter-mix them to make transitions. You waste more paint this way at first – until you get good at guessing how much you’ll need.
(BTW – I think this is why watercolorists have endless discussion about new colors to buy. Because they can’t pre-mix batches for the day’s work).
I’m using pre-tinted canvas boards. Yes, canvas boards are yuck, but meh – I had them in a box for years now, just waiting for their moment.
They’re primed with a mottled flesh color – in fact, these are old art-school era figure paintings, erased with leftover paint.
You can see in this second piece, I got the hang of using the undertone as a middle color and sketching with a few values of light and dark on top. This underpainting probably took 10 minutes, because I’d spent so much time making my colors before.
Once you have the basic planes, then it’s just a matter of refining the shapes of light and shadow, and re-stating the darks. Voila!
It was quite a joy to be able to blast in bright highlights over the head, and use a rich opaque near-white on the background. Look at that thick paint! I don’t know – after all these years of watercolor, I feel guilty using so much paint :) But I can’t help it. It’s so much fun.
Selfie #3: Once again – planar sketch – (pretty much what I would have done in a direct watercolor) – then refinement of the shapes, breaking the blocks of tone down into smaller subdivisions.
Side note – the best thing about glasses in a portrait is painting the distortion in the lenses.
So to sum up this take on acrylic painting:
- Start with a toned canvas so the gaps between strokes are not white.
- Pre-mix the five or six major color values you’re going to need. Try to make enough not to run out.
- Sketch the planes of the head in your flat (ish) values.
- Intermix the pre-mixes if necessary to make halftones for modeling.
- Refine edges, tighten shapes, restate darks.
- IMO it’s more about matching values on planes of the head, rather than getting the exact right color. These are very pinky, but look ‘right’ to me. You could mix more accurate colors, but I don’t feel it matters in the end. The piece will hold together – it’s internally consistent.
#OneWeek100People2019 Day Three: Going Direct
Ok – got some life-stuff out of the way this morning, and we’re back in the studio.
I decide to return to the selfies with open with some ABSORBED LINE.
That is, sketching in line with a pointed round, then, immediately, absorbing the line into a blocked-in shadow shape.
Work fast, and the lines you enclose will vanish completely into the larger wash.
This third one is working for me. Probably my favorite so far. What do I like?
- Sketch looks like George Takei.
- The background bleed into the shoulders is just right. (Luck + adjusting the tilt).
- Underlying head shape is a simple abstract blob that captures the light with reserved white. I like the cooling of the side planes and the wet-in-wet implications of beard stubble.
- The rich red strokes thrown into the wet in wet have bled nicely. You need a jelly consistency to get nice strokes like this. I’m using cadmium red for the first time in years, (want to get rid of an old tube). It’s a dense color, feels quite opaque for a watercolor.
Here’s a better shot at an underlying head shape. I looks totally wrong without the eyebrows :) but you can’t put them (or the beard) in too soon or the darker hair will bleed too much. I also want this as wet as possible so the warm and cool stuff can merge nicely. It’s 100% instinct. I’m just dropping color according to what I see, looking to make the head feel dimensional just with planes of color.
After I’ve hit the wet head-shape with the hair dryer, I can just draw in all the darks with honey-er mixes. These days I’m not drying it bone-dry before I start back in. That way the second pass has a very slight chance of blending in.
This is the one I would use on my Tinder profile.
One more time. Egg Head to Selfie.
#5 for the day – and I’m sort of remembering how watercolor works. The egg-head actually looks dimensional hey? If you can get that volume into the base shape, then you know it’s going to work out in the final.
So, that’s a good likeness. It’s a clean sketch, well executed. But – I’m still underwhelmed. It’s not very interesting. Just a boring snapshot of me.
It’s like – the ones I find exciting and the ones I find accurate – it’s never going to be the same ones. Alas.
#6: Got a little frustrated with the blandness, so did another Destruction Test. How much water can I throw on? How much black (neutral tint) can I slather on the background?
Apparently a lot.
But, a thick coat of paint can be lifted-out with a wet brush. And even that dripping head eventually dries. Eventually, I can pull out a few details with honey-mixes.
This is an inconclusive test. It’s interesting. But it’s not really a portrait is it? It’s sort of faux psychological – the appearance of a moody image, but it’s fake – because any mood it projects is just an accident of the process.
I do, however, enjoy the textures that show up from all the overworking.
Ok! So apparently seven selfies a day is a comfortable number. After dinner, I went back for one more simple one. Just a classic water-sketch.
It’s day three of #OneWeekOneHundredPeople2019 and Old Man Holmes says, “Goodnight Folks!”
#OneWeek100People2019 Day Two: Selfie Series
Alright – time to get serious. The recent life drawing has been fun and games – I could do that all week.
But let’s talk motivation.
#OneWeek100People2019 is about everyone drawing together to share in the motivation. The group excitement. But also – the shared guilt. Nothing like making a big social media announcement to give you a short-term jolt of motivation!
But I think we also have to have long term personal goals.
If you’re a beginner it’s easy. Your goal is probably “I want to get better”. But after a while, you have to think about – “Get better at what?”. Why am I getting better?
Behind the scenes here, for the last year or so, I’ve been painting landscapes in the studio. This has become my most serious project to date. Serious enough I quit my day job! (Ok, well, I didn’t really have a day job, but I quit taking freelance illustration).
I feel like my opaque painting is taking off like mad. I’m loving it, and I’m thinking some very ambitious thoughts about big paintings and big art shows.
So, I do have long term goals! And my issue is how to fit 100 people into that :)
But you know what – right now I’m worried. Just like I was concerned I’d forgotten how to draw people, it’s been a LONG time since my last serious watercolor.
Thus, I’ve decided – for #OneWeek100People2019 – I really need to check in with water painting. Because #30x30DirectWatercolor is coming up right on my heels, and that’s a project that is going to me much more in line with this year’s goals.
To be honest – It’s not really responsible for me to be doing more life drawing on the street. I feel like, I’ve go that in hand. In previous years I’ve tried to lead by example and do all 100 on the first day. Last year I was one caffeinated drink short of making it. Gave up an hour too soon. Fun as it would be to do it again – it seems like it isn’t time well spent for me.
So – I’m going to enjoy all the figure drawing on location the rest of the world is doing – but at home, it’s time for some self-centered reflection on the meaning of life.
So – I say to myself – this year I’ll do 100 Selfies. 100 self-portraits have to teach me something.
Some artists make a rule for self-portrait series – no two portraits can be handled the same way – you must change technique or media. You’d HAVE to learn something just by brute force. So. I’m not sure I can do that, AND train my watercolors at the same time. But hey, let’s see what we see.
Some few warmup sketches later – I’ve realized selfies are a terrible subject in the context of #OneWeek100People!!! (<Already losing my way :)
A: It’s insanely boring – repeatedly painting my own face. I only made it to #3 and I’m gritting my teeth.
B: I’ve drastically slowed down since I was at my peak painting plein-air! The studio work, the relaxed pace of oil painting – it’s made me soft!
So – lets recap:
I really don’t like this painting.
I’m rushing to paint as fast as possible, aiming for that 100 goal – and not concentrating. I’m ending up with a kind of cartoon likeness. It’s illustrative. It’s high contrast – in the manner of an ink sketch. Which I love in ink, but I find obnoxious in paint.
When you don’t have middle value – (because ink is pure black/white) – then fine – you live with it. When you DO have values, I regret the instinct to go to a choppy hard-edged three value scale.
It’s a waste of potential. Watercolor is supposed to be subtle.
Alright then. Try again:
This time I get mad and act out with the Cadmium Red. But that’s a cheap trick.
Ok – what about DESTRUCTION TESTING!
Keep going well past the point where I should stop, and see what happens.
This is the same red painting, just overworked to death. I’m going to count it as a new work though. I washed over with naples yellow, pushed back with a solid 100% neutral tint, and scrubbed out with dirty water, dragged with a 2″ house painting flat, then rebuilt just a bit with richer honey-paint.
Doesn’t look much like me. This is Christian Slater-Me.
But it’s nothing like the way I was painting this morning.
Huh. Go figure.
I’m learning by brute force.
Try another set.
Mix bigger puddles, and blast some underlying shapes. Maybe I can make this one really loose – super wet in wet, yet ALSO improve the likeness.
Nope! Nice try. Doesn’t really look like me. This is George-Lucas me.
If it had been amazing – I’d have let it live. But naw – this is still nothing – still too cartoony.
Getting closer to my 51-year-old, 195lb face. But still, ain’t worth keeping.
So let’s destroy and rebuild:
Poured paint from some 2oz mixing cups. Tilted it around, poured some more. Raked with the 2″ bristle brush. Dropped in globs of Chinese white.
Alright! It’s not a sketch anymore – it’s a painting. Not – in my opinion, a great one – but still. I’m trying to really soak myself in watercolor here.
So that’s seven selfies on the first serious day. A long way from 100. But – I think you get where I’m at here. Maybe not an earth-shattering breakthrough – but – I’m
Off to bed, tomorrow’s another day in #OneWeek100People2019!
#OneWeek100People2019: It’s on!
UPDATE!: EVERYTHING TO DO WITH #ONEWEEK100PEOPLE IS NOW ON IT’S OWN PAGE: [ HERE ] Or just click on the tab #OneWeek100People in the navigation bar above. Thanks! ~m
ORIGINAL POST:
So it begins again! #OneWeek100People2019!
All over the world, our little club of people are heading out sketching :) That’s pretty fun to think about. It’s nice to be part of something bigger than yourself.
I wanted to post another set of life drawings. Just to give a few more examples of how easy it is to get to 100.
I mean, it’s easy, if you let it be.
If you let yourself ignore the idea of impressing people with great drawings, and embrace the idea of sketching only to learn.
My ideal behind #OneWeek100People2019 was to prove to students the only answer to “How do I learn to draw?” – is – “Draw a lot. And quickly.”
The beauty of rapid sketching is: it trains everything at once.
- Gesture: Capturing the posture, the emotion in a figure.
- Likeness: Making a portrait is a matter of seeing a person’s specific, unique variation from the generic human features. Even in these single line sketches above, you can see the sharp nose, narrow jaw, and over-hanging bangs, which define this model’s face.
- Proportion: We often want elegant, or at least realistic people – and yes, measuring works, it’s foolproof – but it’s kind of bogus. It takes too long. You’ll never successfully measure a person in the wild. But you *can* learn to get accurate (or stylized) proportions in an instant. Simple repetition will give you this ability in only a year or so.
Gesture drawing can also teach you to paint!
I always say, your smallest tool for line, your BIGGEST tool for tone. (In this case a Pentel brush pen).
These kind of 2-5 min sketches are how you learn to see masses of shadow and volume. It’s not by painstaking rendering. It’s by learning to SEE the mass. And you do that by rapid repetition. Train your brain by doing it over and over, fairly quickly – much like you’re doing scales or chords on your instrument.
So when people say – “How do you draw people so full of life?” The answer is NOT that I take time to do a good job (even though these are 20 min poses), it’s that I’ve been practicing Gesture and Massing, and I can keep that life and rhythm when I slow down.
Don’t let it stiffen up. Again – just like the musician – it’s not just the ability to play the notes – it’s to play with emotion.
So, let’s dive into #OneWeek100People2019!
And thanks to Dr Sketchy’s Montreal and model Eldirch Mor for the terrific Crimson Peak life drawing session to launch my week :)
This little interview is related to #OneWeek100People project. Find out more about the week long event over HERE.
MTH: You’re a parent, (I don’t know how parents have time for anything!) and a freelancer, and I know you’ve had to travel quite a bit recently for life/family-stuff. so – my question is – Do you have any special strategy for fitting 100 people into your schedule?
SS: The closest I have to a strategy is to try and fit them into my schedule in whatever way I can. I’m traveling by myself with my kids most of the week (a last-minute plan), including a full day of flying and lots of driving, so the sketches will just be what I can do in what time I have. I think that’s going to be challenging enough, so I haven’t a special focus in mind.
I might also supplement my day’s sketching with some studies from photographs if I have the energy to squeeze them in at the end of the day. We’ll see! Can you tell I’m not a planner?
About being a parent and freelancer and sketching, I think it’s mostly about finding those bits of time in the day and having your sketchkit with you ALL the time. My sketchbag and me is a little bit like the character Linus (from Charlie Brown) and his blanket: it goes everywhere with me. It even goes from my studio to my kitchen table when the kids are having their breakfast before school, because, hey, if I get the time to sit down to coffee, I can squeeze in a sketch! < This is so true, it’s the only way! – Always Be Sketching :)
MTH: I asked Liz this, but I want to get your take: What do you think about the ‘social’ issues of drawing people in public? Do you twinge when you get caught – or is it even an issue for you?
SS: It’s been a non-issue for me for a while now. It’s partly that I never was particularly self-conscious about how I draw (I think that’s really the issue, people wonder how their sketch looks to someone else), but it’s also a confidence you build over time: After a while you realize most people don’t care and some are even intrigued by what you do. Also, your sketches get better over time and that helps! But you gotta start and stay at it to get there. < Hah! You are so over it :)
MTH: Related to that, have you ever had any unusually good or bad reactions?
SS: I can’t remember any disastrous ones, for the most part they’re really good. Drawing in public is a great conversation starter: I like talking to people but rarely approach someone I don’t know. But if I’m drawing, people come talk to me, and people are intrinsically interesting.
MTH: I know we’ve all given our tips and tricks on our blogs, so I won’t ask that – but – how about this – If you could draw anything – person life not being a factor – what are some realistic projects you’d actually be doing? Is there a subject/project you’d like to share that possibly other people could try in their #OneWeek100People2019?
SS: One little project I might incorporate into this week, (especially given that I might not get to 100 people sketches from life) is drawing the sport of baseball, from photos and then from video. Why? My son plays little league baseball, and I understand absolutely nothing about how the body moves and weight shifts in the pitching and batting actions. So drawing baseball has been hard for me! I’m hoping that drawing from photos and videos might give me some feel and understanding the helps draw live action: we’ll see!
MTH: Thanks, Suhita! We’re looking forward to sketches from your trip!!
Mini-Interview with Liz Steel, #OneWeek100People2019
This little interview is related to #OneWeek100People project. Find out more about the week long event over HERE.
MTH: You’re a busy person these days filming classes and managing your growing video channels. Do you have any special strategy for fitting 100 people into your daily schedule?
LS: Yes, things are pretty hectic for me at the moment – I just finished filming my next course and I’m now trying to complete some other projects before heading to Europe at the end of the month for a 3-month trip!
My daily practice is to spend an hour at the start of the day at my local cafe doing some work, sketching my coffee and a few people sitting at the other tables. This means it’s already part of my daily practice to sketch people, therefore, all I have to do is to allow a little more time for doing my 20 per day.
Perhaps I just have to wake up 30-60 minutes earlier and it will then be easy. Or spend 30 minutes less time on Instagram and only get up 1/2 hour earlier.
MTH: Any special goals for the week besides hitting 100?
LS: I know from previous years that it’s pretty easy for me to hit the 20 per day goal if they are just simple ink drawings of mainly heads. I did a test a week ago and it only took me 15 minutes to do 20 really fast loose sketches.
Therefore I need to make this more of a challenge! I want to aim for 100 watercolour people.
Ideally, they’ll be painted on location, but if not, I want to add colour later that day when I’m home.
I would also like to do a little more anatomy research during the week… but I’m not putting any pressure on myself for that.
MTH: You’re a fast sketcher, but catching people on the go is hard :) How to you speed up?
LS: My theory is that I have to sketch from knowledge. So I see someone and very quickly form an idea of how this person is different from the classic male or female person I have in my head. I try to capture the gesture and then draw the distinctive features of that specific person, finishing it off from my knowledge, if they move.
MTH: If a person vanishes on you, do you finish anyway or skip that one? (This must be tricky as you save ALL your pages!)
LS: It depends a little on how much I captured – if it describes enough I leave it incomplete otherwise I finish from my knowledge as mentioned above. I might look for someone else to use a second model to help me finish – but while doing a challenge like this I want to keep drawing and not wait around for someone to turn up in a similar pose.
MTH: Do you do the sketch with a single tool and embellish later with color etc – or do you work with a variety of tools all at once?
LS: My preferred way of working is to capture gesture with my paintbrush first and perhaps some shadow shapes as well, and then draw over the top (into the wet) with my Lamy Joy (med nib and De Atramentis Document Ink) This means that I sometimes get unexpected black blooms of ink for a facial feature, but I can live with that! Whether this technique will be quick enough for the challenge is yet to be seen!
MTH: This is one I get asked a lot: What do you think about the ‘social’ issues of drawing people in public. Do you twinge when you get caught – or is it even an issue for you?
LS: I do feel a little awkward when the person notices me drawing them, but I normally just explain what I’m doing and show them my sketch. I haven’t gotten a bad response yet!
During #OneWeek100People2019 I feel more confident to sketch anyone, as I have a good reason to be drawing people. I just tell them “ I’m trying to draw 100 people this week as part of an international challenge” and that gets even more positive responses. Anything ‘international’ sounds impressive to others.
MTH: Related to that, have you ever had any unusually good or bad reactions?
LS: As above, only good to date. In fact, I’m definitely making many more friends at my local cafes these days now that I am sketching people as opposed to when I only painted my coffee cups. It really engages people and I get a total buzz out of talking with other when I’m out with my sketchbook. Sketching people gets the best reaction without a doubt.
MTH: Finally: Let’s say you fell in love with people sketching. If you could do anything at all in the arena of reportage sketching, what would it be? Maybe someone out there can help make it happen :)
LS: Actually I have already fallen in love with people sketching (a lot has happened since we last sketched together hey?) although I’m still not super confident. I would just simply love to sketch more social gatherings with my family and friends.
For some reason it feels more intimidating to sketch people closer to you, but I just have to do it. I suppose that I would love to be confident that I could produce beautiful work at a friend’s wedding. That would be special!
Thanks Marc – its great to be doing this challenge again with you, Suhita and everyone else.
Just a reminder: #OneWeek100People2019 starts April 8th!
Just a reminder: we have around 1000 artists in the Facebook group ready to help each other cross the finish line next week.
My friend E was doing a double-model the other day – something you don’t get so often – so I jumped at the chance for a warm-up.
Some tips on Direct-to-Ink sketching: (No pencil, straight to ink).
- Just redraw weaker figures or missed lines right on top. Usually, you can save the drawing. The misplaced lines don’t detract if you don’t think they do :) I find the pages with all the over-drawn figures more interesting.
- Use a small nib for finding contour, and the biggest nib you have for shadow shapes in contrast. I have a steel brush but you might also like a Parallel Pen if you don’t want to carry bottled ink.
- I use dipping nibs so I can change ink color on the fly, but you’d can always just carry more pens. I like a red line for variety from the black ink.
- Think about placement on the page – and scale – make some figures much bigger than others, for variety, and to include portraits in with full figures. Use the direction of the figure’s pose – and even the direction of gaze – to influence the composition.
I like to use ‘disposable’ paper. These are pieces of Aquarius II folded into little booklets. I feel so much more relaxed about bad drawings if they’re not in a sketchbook. It’s a phobia I have about ruining a book. People say, don’t let it get to you, but if you can’t let go of the pressure to have a ‘perfect’ book, this is how I side-step that whole thing.
I’m starting to love this little stack of folding paper I’m building up, just as much as my sketchbooks that I never finish anyway :)
Okiedoke! See you guys next week for #100Week100People2019. I’m looking forward to see what everyone gets up to :)
Citizen Sketcher 