My Life in Beta

I received notification the other day that the Art House Co-op had officially received my sketchbook! I can not wait to venture to one of the tour locations to see all of the sketchbooks!

My official Art House Co-op Sketchbook page is here.

I can’t wait to join this project again next year, but in the meantime, I purchased a set of Moleskine sketchbooks so that I can continue this creative thinking process! I’ll plan on keeping this updated on that progress.

I hope to have a post in the next couple of days about Kansas City Design Week 2011. I felt very creatively charged and excited about Kansas city after attending these events!

Ok, it took me long enough to get these posted!

I had this interesting idea that if something can fall from the sky, it can become a dirigible by default. So, why not attach hot air to raindrops! I wanted to play around with typography as well, so I added some hand type at the top of the page, but it was not as successful as I had hoped. Colored pencil did NOT like that textured paper!

This might be one of my favorite pages in the book! I am slowly falling in love with what simple line work can create. I have always had a soft spot for whiplash lines and graceful line, but I love what this can do when it is combined with type! I also just wanted to see how many shapes of hot air balloons I could come up with!

Ok, this is the page that I didn’t get to finish before the sketchbook was due. I had this owl lying around in hopes that I could use it at some point, and I didn’t want this lovely textured page to go to waste, so there you have it. Its boring, but you do what you can do!

I had all sorts of old paper sample books with very fun colored paper, from metallics to vellums. I thought it would be interesting to play with the idea of raindrops turning into dirigibles again. These colors are much more vivid in real life.

I was looking though my old Communication Arts illustration annuals and came across the idea of creating positive space with various patterns. I went back to the 90′s and used my metallic gel pens (that actually still work) to make some interesting patterns. I would have liked to fill the space more, but I did what I could!

And here are the final pages! Part of the reason I decided to explore the cut paper window idea is because I wasn’t going to have time to finish the whole sketchbook, and I really wanted to. The other part of the reason is that I had been thinking about this idea throughout the whole book. I’m very happy with how this turned out! It did take a LOT of time to watercolor each page with progressive color changes, but the textures that it created were beautiful!

Time’s running out, but I’m bound and determined to get this thing done, and done well! I do tend to work much better when a deadline is approaching, so we’ll see how the second half of the book goes! (yeah, second half… I’ve got a LOT to do before January 15th!)

This serene setting is inspired by one of Kansas City’s local fine artists, Rich Bowman. I’ve been memorized by his use of color since the first time I set eyes on his work! Look him up! His rendition of serene scenes are much more effective!

Ok, this might be my favorite page (along with the red bird page)! I think these whales are SUPER cute! I cut these little guys out of Yupo paper and adhered them to my layered painted surface. This page was intended to have a gloss finish, but the pages kept sticking together, much to my dismay, so I had to put a thin layer of clear gesso on the surface. No more shiny = sad day.

This is the page that kept me stuck for days. I’m still not happy with it, but the whole idea is that a dirigible looks just like a submersible, only upside down. I might go back and finish it, but more than likely I’ll leave it as is.

I decided there needed to be some white space amid the sea of color-filled pages. This is Litho Crayon with colored pencil on the right, and Litho Crayon and ink on the left. Had to go back in with the left page because the black was transferring over against my wishes.

Ok, he’s pretty cute too. Is he a submersible? I think so! Layers of pastel, watercolor, colored pencil, and more pastel on this page. It smells of wonderful acrylic fixative, and so did the house after I finished!

I’m just posting images tonight (that I was going to post a week ago). I’ll probably update this post at some point with explanations, but I think the second image and the bottom image are my favorites! : )

First of all, I have this affinity for alliteration. I find these three spreads somewhat dark and gloomy, yet curious and happy at the same time, hence the title to this post!

Layer 1: clear white gesso.
Layer 2: water color.
Layer 3: colored pencil.
Layer 4: pen and ink.
Layer 5: iridescent pearl acrylic
So, there are lots of layers! A few experiments included adding texture to the white gesso while it was wet, like the swirl pattern added by the end of the paintbrush, and the blotting texture added by accidently letting the pages close before they were dry… In the words of Bob Ross, “A Happy Accident”. I also tried applying highly pigmented watercolor onto the gesso and wiping it down on the ridges of the blotted texture, but it didn’t work quite as well as I’d hoped. The goal was to have all of the color reside in the valley’s of the surface. I also need to add that I borrowed the black figures from a series of small paintings I purchased 4 years ago by Chad Mount. I purchased the paintings as a congratulations to myself for landing my first job!

For now, this is a placeholder. I have three additional clouds to add to this page once my sketchbook is complete. I need to wait, however, so that the texture doesn’t affect future pages. I am quite pleased with the intensity of the color in the background of this spread, achieved with acrylic pigment mixed with clear gesso (my favorite) and light watercolor washes. I wanted to do something on this page that would rival and complement the color. I had the idea of having these cartoon, water colored clouds appear as if they were hanging from some sort of beam, like you might imagine in a stage set. I don’t think I will add anything else.

Ok, only clear gesso mixed with blue acrylic, watercolor wash, and colored pencil were used on this spread. I know, I’m slacking! I am in love with the water surface! I tried to carry that liney appearance into the bubbles and seaweed, but I don’t think it was nearly as successful. I also really like how the fish turned out, though I wish the colors popped a bit more. The watercolor layer under the colored pencil looked great before it dried. I think I’m struggling the most with the lack of clarity that I am achieving with the colored pencils. Crisp line quality is one of my main goals for anything that I output and I’m just not able to make that happen with the medium.

I guess this whole process is about trial and error! I’m learning to let the mediums guide me as to what they can and can’t do and I’m evolving my processes accordingly. I’m definitely in search of a highly pigmented medium that I can get detailed with, yet blend as easily as colored pencil. Suggestions?

I’m also realizing that I only have 7 spreads finished…. and 33 to go…. I need to get crackin’ if I want to have this finished by January 15th!

Here are my first few pages of my sketchbook:

This seemed to be a good way to start off, with a title page. I completed this page with Prismacolor Colored Pencils and watercolor. Mixed media is one of my passions! I love to see what I can do with several different mediums, and how they will react with one another! One of my main goals for this book is to continue to express myself through color. I LOVE it, LOTS of it!

I gessoed this page prior to applying any medium, then I added watercolor for the blue background. I used anything I could think of to motivate texture, from water splatters to salt, and even rubbing alcohol. I drew in the tentacles and bubbles and proceeded to apply colored pencil to the bubbles. I wanted the tentacles to have a bit more pop, so I added some clear gesso (great for adding tooth to a surface) to some acrylic paint and applied that first, followed by colored pencil for detail. Overall, I’m pleased with the outcome!

Birds are dirigibles, right? As you may know, I have a small obsession with birds, and this is probably not the last you will see of them in this sketchbook! On this page I gessoed the pages with clear gesso, followed by a texturized layer of watercolor. I used india ink for the black areas. I then painted the larger birds with an incandescent acrylic overlay. I wanted this portion of the page to stand out, like areas of a pages stand out when a spot varnish is applied. To solve this challenge I created a stencil and sprayed a high gloss clear coat several times on the bird areas. It wasn’t standing out like I had hoped, so I found some old gel pens and did some outlining. I may end up updating this page, but for now I’ve got plenty of other pages to tend to!

This is by far my favorite page! To begin, I applied a coat of blue paint mixed with clear gesso, for the great tooth. I added some blurry blades of grass in acrylic while the background was still wet. I then went in with colored pencil to complete the page. I am very pleased with how the color has formed the shapes of the balloons as well as the blades of grass. Overall, I am pleased with this technique and plan on proceeding on some of the other pages with it!

You can also see a complete library of my sketchbook pages here.