Week 6 Assignment: Minimal Set-up

Week 6 Assignment: Gestural Set-up and No Set-up of Objects

For this assignment I used my my outdoor sketching bag and my pencil & pen case. Although the blue bag is a bit bulky, it holds all my sketching essentials with room to spare. It is large enough to hold extra layers of clothing for winter sketching. The contents of both bags are featured in the Week 1 Assignment. 

Image #1

I made a gestural drawing in graphite and then used my Lamy Safari pen for the ink lines. The soft contours of the bag hide some errors—mainly that the large bag is too short, but it reads OK on the page. I’m still not used to the Lamy pen which slows down my drawing. I feel that there are too many lines on the interior of the large bag and that thicker/darker lines would have helped in places. Need to practice more with the Lamy Safari pen.

Week 6 Assignment: Image #1
Graphite pencil set-up
then drawing with Lamy Safari pen (Noodler's black ink)
 on Canson drawing paper. 

Image #2

I drew the same objects using the Gestural sketch approach. I am most comfortable using the gestural approach and then doing some measurement and checking of angles, etc. The Inktense pencils worked well for making a non-measured sketch of the two bags. Then I added watercolor—which I proceeded to overwork. I finally said to myself, ‘you are not making it any better, so stop and let it dry.’ Thanks, Liz, for that advice! 

I find that Aquabee’s Super Deluxe sketch book paper is good for quick sketching, but not optimal for watercolor. However, the paper, which is highly sized, held up well despite my overworking of the blue bag. The application of watercolor in the pink bag is a freer use of the paint. After the initial application of watercolor had dried overnight, I added a few details to the blue bag with darker blue watercolor and Inktense colored pencils . I think that setting a time limit for myself would help to avoid overworking the paint.

Week 6 Assignment: Image #2
Gestural sketch using Inktense colored pencils;
Daniel Smith watercolors on Aquabee Super Deluxe sketch paper