Keeping track of progress on creative projects
Same approach, with violet in place of vermilion. I love how the darker inks work together.
I also enjoy this leaf shape. It reminds me a little of Van Gogh’s “Cypresses.”
Good news for fans of the cross-hatched ghosts: this technique is working well with my schedule and my mental health, so I’m likely to stick with it primarily (maybe exclusively) for awhile.
Same inks as #101, looking lighter here because they’re on white paper.
The big experiment this time was more timing than technique. With the summer over and the new semester underway, opportunities for long drawing and painting sessions are fewer and farther between. However, dip pens don’t require a lot of set-up or clean-up (well okay, a little clean-up). So I tried drawing this over several days, doing one pass at a time between work-related tasks.
It worked wonderfully well, providing badly-needed meditative pauses. I also think the the result looks a little better, more evenly inked.
Another field of blue, this time with blue greens rather than greys in the middle. Working for stress relief rather than artistic innovation here.
Working with color on grey paper for the first time. That’s W&N Vermilion and Black.
I’m pleased with the result and will definitely return to this combination in the future.
For #100 I wanted to make a couple of significant steps.
This is the first time I’ve repeated paint colors. The hues and wet-on-wet technique here are the same as what I used for #84 way back at the beginning of Ghost Week two months ago. The difference here is watercolor board rather than watercolor paper. On the plus side, it didn’t warp at all. On the minus side, it absorbed the water so quickly that it made the wet-on-wet technique harder to apply evenly.
But more significantly, this is the first leaf ghost I’ve framed. I chose a shadow box frame to make the painting look more like a preserved specimen of something natural. It’s a fun effect, though I may need to re-attach the board to the backing with a different adhesive.
