Leaf Ghost #4

 

With spring break winding down and leaving me desperate for a creative win, I decided another leaf ghost would do the trick nicely.

This is actually the leaf ghost I had in mind when I first started the series.

More than two years ago I bought the gouache I intended to use for my first leaf ghost painting. I did some work with gouache as an undergrad many, many years ago, but I hadn’t touched the stuff since. I remembered that it tended to produce a nice, flat, even color coverage, which is exactly what I had in mind.

It turned out that the black was the only color of the three that produced the effect I remembered. Which is okay. I’m still using this project as an excuse to experiment around with media and techniques, so this is anything but a failure.

Naturally I mixed white and the darker green to get the lighter green.

And speaking of white, this is the first time I painted the light parts of the background squares rather than letting the white paper do the work.

Oh, and this was the first time I ever got paint on this old easel I’ve had for years.

One of my friends from art school would go absolutely nuts if she saw that photo. She was super strict about making sure everything was completely spotless before beginning and after finishing any art project. I agree about the importance of cleaning pens, brushes and anything else where old media might mix in and damage a future project. But for a support like an easel, this strikes me more as a piece of its history.

Overall I was pleased with the results this time around. At some point in the future I will return to this combination, probably for a larger piece on either paper or illustration board.

Coloring Book Page – Blob

 

It’s been awhile since I finished a coloring book page. That’s due in part to other commitments (including other art projects) and in part to getting stuck on a complicated image from the Call of Cthulhu coloring book.

This one, of course, is an entry from the Bernie Wrightson set. It was fun, especially working with the shades of green for the decomposing arm inside the monster. It was also more relaxing and less time-consuming than the CoC page, which I’m going to try to go back to next.

Leaf Ghost #3

 

 
Snow day today. And with spring break looming as well, it seemed like a good time to create another leaf ghost.

Today’s medium of choice was ink on paper. During a recent trip to Wonder Fair, I bought two bottles of Noodler’s Ink. I admit this was an impulse buy, based more on the appearance of the bottles and their attractive display than on an actual need for ink, which I haven’t done much with in quite awhile.

So right away this represented a departure from my usual leaf ghost groove, which is to work with a black and white background and shades of green for the foreground. Though I had no specific look in mind for this one, the colors were quite different from what I expected.

The “Black and Blue” ink was the only one on the shelves that looked like it might be black or even had “black” anywhere on its label. Turns out that of the two words in the name, the second one proved more accurate.

I was surprised, but not unpleasantly so. I’m not making these for clients or even for display in my home – at least not for now – so however they come out is part of the process. I already knew this one was going to be a departure, so it was fun to see where it chose to go.

I haven’t painted with ink in many years, so it was also interesting to re-experience how it flowed and layered on the page.

The other bottle I bought was labeled “Dragon’s Napalm: The only sepia shading carmine.” With a name like that – not to mention the picture on the label – how could I resist? Clearly this wouldn’t be the leaf ghost traditional green, but beyond that I had little idea what to expect.

I confess that the bright orange was not the darker red I associate with “carmine.” But it made a lovely combination with the equally-unexpected blue. Clearly the ink gods favored me today.

And their favor continued to the next step. I needed a lighter shade of the color I just used, which of course I didn’t have as a pre-mixed ink. With no idea whether or not it would work, I mixed a couple of drops of ink with some water and gave it a try.

Miraculously, it worked. I got a lighter shade that came out kinda coral colored.

I was quite pleased with the result.

When I dug up the Noodler’s Ink web site for the link toward the top of this post, I found that they’re actually intended for fountain pen use. So sometime in the future I’ll try this same combination in pens and see what I get.

Today also marks the first time I’ve ever used this easel to actually paint something. Though I’ve worked with it for other purposes in the past, it felt great to use it for what it’s actually for. And it proved to be the perfect height on the table when I sat on a small stool while I worked.

This afternoon’s final mini triumph was the lack of bleed-through to the other side of the page, even though I used a fairly liberal amount of ink. I have another project in mind for some point in the future, and it will require being able to work on both sides of each piece of paper in a sketchbook. Nice to know this paper will work for that.