Final image out of the batch. Outlines added. Benday dot patterns are in place and watercolor is set.
6 months ago
Roughing in color in watercolor. This has about 4 layers of watercolor on so far. Now it’s time for the detail! That’s when everything starts to come together.
Duke & Buster seem to have found themselves in another bind.
4”x6” watercolor with overlay, Arches 140lb cold press
Young Love
18×24 Acrylic on Canvas with Acrylic Transfer Overlays.
My objective was to really push this painting into a more worn pulp comic 1950’s feel. I made the “mass produced printing look” more pronounced. This is really noticeable in the striped pattern in the young girls shirt, the dotted reds in the boys button-up and the giant diagonal lined circle pattern which repeats across the background. The couples skin tone is also made up of a dotted reddish/pink hues which isn’t as noticeable. The effect was scaled back as the painting progressed. I had hoped that the painting would have been more about the giant pronounced shapes which colored the painting, I think it would have made it more abstract, but i found myself really fighting back from taking it there.
I also made a conscious decision to add a title and word bubbles to this image. I made sure that i didn’t clearly spell out to much however. I felt it was obvious these two teenagers were in love or some type of it. I didn’t have a problem with making this known in the bottom corner. With their pose/gesture and embrace, was he grabbing her by the arm to tell her “It’s over! Now leave me alone. Quit following me.”? Or perhaps she isn’t his to begin with and he’s pulling her close to let her know his true feelings? Then again, It’s not about him. Its her reaction to him. She’s either startled from forceful talk or looking long-fully for acceptance. I didn’t want their words spelt out to let us know., but yet I did. So I compromised and showed half.
Moleskine Cahier EXTRA Large Plain Notebook
I just picked up a set of these Moleskine Cahier notebooks over the weekend and I really like them. They come as a set of 3 notebooks with plain eggshell paper and a heavy duty cardboard cover with stitching on the spine. They are around 7.5 x 10 inches and each contain 120 pages.
What I like best about these notebooks is that they can be opened up completely flat on a desk and give you a nice smooth surface to work on compared to other sketchbooks. The paper is of high quality and they hold ink very well and pencil tips travel across the pages with ease without wandering.
I would only use these books for sketching though, because the covers are NOT imitation leather. They have paper covers. Granted, it’s a thicker, almost paper-board paper, but it’s still paper. They may not hold up down the road from being carried everywhere, or from having anything dropped/spilled on them.
I bought these to be a “sketchbook substitute”. I have one in my book bag, one in my living room coffee table drawer and one in my truck. You wont be scared of drawing because of the price of the notebooks, knowing you have a few more laying around somewhere.
At Last…
18×24 Acrylic on Canvas with Acrylic Transfer Overlays.
I made sure that colored shapes were more pronounced in this image. This is noticeable in the young woman’s skin tone where the base is a healthy beige and there is an overlay of lighter, creamier circled patterns. I feel it makes the image more interesting for the eye and tricks it into thinking there is more repetition of color than there actually is. The background, although it is made up of the same type of pattern, has circles that are made of varying colors from slate greys, washed out oranges, and transparent powder blues.
The content is simple and straight forward. A calm, cool and collect young man with features of a young James Dean about to lock lips with his adoring admirer. She does resemble Elizabeth Taylor somewhat. You can almost hear “Etta James” singing At Last as you glance over this image. I would argue that perhaps a little more texture with the paints and brush strokes would add further interest, but i feel content with where it has come. So I continue to a new one….
