Ink Drawings Are Coming! and I've Become a Bobblehead

Egret
Medium: Ink
Size: 7x10 inches

I'm doing ink drawings again! These are fun and easy drawings for my brain to "Zen out" with during my morning coffee. Most of these drawings have a very "sketchy" feel to them, while some will have a more polished look. I'm having fun creating different animals and species that I haven't yet done. More to come-- and I should post the for sale hopefully later this week. Let me know if you see one you'd like to own so I can reserve it for you. These are originals and I don't plan to make prints of any of them, so once they're gone, they're gone. Most of these drawings will be priced around $15-$30. All the drawings in this post are copyrighted to me, Claire Nobles ©2013. No reproductions of any kind.

Birds of Prey
Medium: Ink
Size: 7x10 inches

Flight
Medium: Ink
Size: ~7x10 inches

 As you can probably tell, I was working on birds for a few hours that day. I wanted to experiment with different styles, brush strokes, shading, etc. It was quite fun!

Flying
Medium: Ink
Size: ~5x7 inches

Flight 2
Medium: Ink
Size: ~7x10 inches

As usual, my title-skills have not improved or become original whatsoever...

Sea Horse
Medium: Ink
Size: ~7x10

Then I had to draw sea horses for some reason... I like drawing sea horses!

Sea Horse 2
(Sold)

I would have done more inks, but I had a Jeff Mangum Concert to go to. (It was amazing.) I'm not usually one who shares stuff about music, but since I was listening to his albums during the creation of all of the above drawings, I owe him a little shout-out.

 Jeff Mangum sounds like a cross between Kurt Cobain and a psychopathic folk singer who is having a bad dream while on painkillers (in a good way). Tim described him to me as a guy who is so passionate about his music, that it's physically painful for him to play it. It was evident to me during his first number. He's kind of awesome. Probably an R rating for his lyrics though (to keep in mind)!

This pose started out as an accident... but then I just went with it.  You know you love it.

After the concert, we went to a restaurant called "The Crepe Place" - guess what they served there? Oh yeah, crepes! Genius restaurant name, and great food.

Last night I got two watercolor commissions, plus I still have a few ink commissions to do, so I shall be busy-busy-busy! Hoping to post the above drawings for sale on my Etsy sometime this week! Stay tuned!

Finally: Spirited Away - Prints are 50% off for a limited time!

"Spirited Away" -Enchanted Visions Project
Size: ~6.5x9 inches
Medium: Watercolors
©2012 Claire Nobles
For sale: $12.00 (But will be $6 or 50% off for a limited time only!) Click Here

If you've been following me since the beginning of 2012, you might remember this painting from my "Slightly Eccentric Tutorials." Well, I finally got my computer fixed and was able to scan it in and print it! 

I have to admit, I painted this when I was really sick (I think I had a sinus infection) and I did at least all the base work in the first day. The results amaze me because it appears that when I'm not thinking clearly, my creativity gets unleashed to its fullest potential and holds nothing back. Had I been healthy that day, this possibly would have been a much more simple painting. So I guess my point is that I need to get sick more often? Good job Claire. *walks away muttering to self*

Weirdness aside, it will be available as a 8.5x11 print for only $6.00, rather than the usual $12 for a limited time only. That's 50% off! Also, my other new painting I released this week, "Fairy Cat" has also been marked down to 50% off for a limited time. Both will be available at my Etsy Shop in the SALE Section. So for a short time, you could get both these prints for the price of one! Hoo-ray!

Spirited Away: A Slightly Eccentric Tutorial - Part 2

This is part 2 from the other day's painting tutorial...


Part 1: Spirited Away: A Slightly Eccentric Tutorial

Here, I started doing some dark strands and shadows in her hair with a tiny round brush. Mostly a mix of Yarka browns. 


I also started worrying about the orb the little sprite was offering the maiden. I outlined it with Yarka yellow but kept the center and the wisps around it the white of the paper.


It was right about here that I started getting distracted by texts from my good friend, Alexandra and started skipping records of each step... You can blame her. =)

First off, I began darkening the shadows of her skin, clothing, etc. I also began swooshing lots and lots of bright colors wherever I wanted. 


I did a bit of skin tone and cloth detail on the little sprite, and the swooshing around the offered orb.


Right here is where I was deciding what color to paint around one side of the orb when the sound of the alert from my phone that Alexandra had texted again made me jerk out of my weird state of concentration and spill green in the wrong place! 


I had a split moment of panic and urge to murder. Fortunately for Alex's life, the weird green splotch turned out to blend in nicely with the already wet reddish pant and I texted Alex to inform her that she's awesome and should startle me more often. 
So she texted back "RAWWWRRR!!!" --didn't work the second time.

Sorry about the color inconsistencies! I don't scan each step because it takes me wayyyy longer, instead I take pictures in whatever light presents itself to me at the time.


Anyways, I just love adding swooshes! Can you tell it my favorite thing? I do a lot of wet-into-wet washes in this stage and I do what Alexandra calls "make backgrounds of doom"- which basically means epically detailed backgrounds... No actual doom involved. These "backgrounds of doom" require lots of tiny brushstrokes of many different colors. In this case I literally swiped a wet brush across my entire palette and used whatever color came out of it. I find this much better than going with pure colors because of the fun subtleties and interesting shades you can get.


I also paint the birds after asking Alexandra what color they should be (we miraculously text "Greenish" at the same time). And apparently Alex now thinks she co-painted this...

And here's where texting with Alex really got me distracted from progress shots! (Blame her!) As you can see, I painted in a ton more "doom," elaborating what was already laid down. The butterflies were done in a monarch-like orange (Yarka) and then accented with white gel pen (white gel pen rules). The figure was much more heavily shaded and shadowed and brought to life, and so were her clothes.


The rest of it went on as I grew less and less able to paint due to the insane cold I had. Plus, I had a crazy headache that made it really hard to continue between the sneezing and the coughing and the sniffling and the vision was getting to be all but hazy.


So here's the stopping point where I finally I left it as "Done." In my sick state, I really thought it was done. (Again, the colors are so far from the original painting's, taken with this camera in this awful light-- so the colors will change quite a bit from this monstrosity to the actual print.) Unfortunately, I put this up at my desk for a few days and after having the chance to really look at it from far away, I realize that I have to squint at it... I now see in my back-to-normal-not-sick-anymore-state that the colors are all about the same value, and since there's not enough contrast: the fairie and the painting disappear within itself. 


SO!: This means, more painting of the non-sneezing variety. I know that some of you are thinking I'm just a crazy artist and am being super anal about my work. You're right. But I'm still going to work on it to make it right in my eyes. 


Now hopefully some of you see why artists have the reputation that they do. =D


Next week classes start, so I will try super super hard to finish it before then!! I promise to try my best!


Stay tuned.......

Spirited Away: A Slightly Eccentric Tutorial

First off, this isn't exactly a tutorial. It's way too scatterbrained for that, especially since I forgot I was suppose to be taking pictures of each step halfway through.... But I would like to show you my experience of pushing my skills into something very different for me.


I wrote a poem earlier that explains the sort of mood I was in yesterday and am usually in while I try to create these fantastical paintings. My brain wants to draw EVERYTHING and I realistically have to settle on only a few ideas. You can view the poem I wrote -here-


This painting was a challenge piece for me because I wanted to create the whole thing in ONE DAY. I mostly succeeded.

So this is the inked sketch that turned up after my muse and my brain settled down, well, settled down a little...


I kept quite a bit of the pencil lines in so that I could have something a bit more raw than my usual clean, crisp black lines.


The hair I left mainly to make up as I went along, as well as much of the background. I have to challenge myself to use brushstrokes, rather than rely on what I have laid out for myself. I really wanted to get the creativity flowing for this one, and push myself out of comfort.


I planned to make swirls and swooshes in the background, inspired by the ones I've seen in Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's paintings. My only other plan for this piece was to make it Bright! and to use very vibrant colors like sunshine.


I use Arches Hot Press Watercolor Paper, mechanical pencil, and Micron pens, usually the finest point: 0.005.

Next I painted in some background with yellows on top surrounding the figure, and some reds and purples on the bottom.


I use mainly Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors, and also Yarka Watercolors. I'm not sure if one is "allowed" to mix brands, but I always have, so I don't see any reason to stop now. The brushes are an assortment of mostly Princeton rounds.


The yellows were lemon yellow and cadmium yellow from the Yarka set. This is mainly because I was too lazy to get the Daniel Smith yellows out. 


For the bottom reds and purples, I used DS alizarin crimson, my favorite, and DS carbazole violet.


I did the first wash the same way I usually do washes. While I was taking Watercolor Classes, this seemed to be a technique that confused most students. First I wet the entire paper with clear water and a big flat brush, nice and wet! Then I splatter some colors around the page, taking care to pull the color as I go away from the figure or other parts I may not want to be bright yellow or the like. You can use more clear water to pull and lift the colors away from the central figure. This way you create a sort of glow around the figure that is especially nice for fantasy art. You have to work fast of course! Otherwise, you're left with weird splotches that you have to figure out what to do with... Once you're done and waiting for paint to dry, you can use the salt effects or rubbing alcohol for some fun starbursts and bubbles. Otherwise, I use a hair dryer, full intensity at this time. =)

Next, I create some swooshes...


I try and stay with my sun-colored plan, but I need a bit of contrast and variation. Since purple is the complement of yellow, I put that down with a little extra red, to make more of a red-violet and stick with the bright theme.


The technique here is to lay down a brushstroke, and then with clean water lay on down directly beside it so there's no hard edges, but so that the color bleeds over. I did create a couple of hard edges, but those are intended. 


(sorry about the weird inconsistencies with color by the way! This was taken under the light of my art lamp which gives off weird shadows and so all of these pictures have had to be adjusted to show them off best.)

Now it's time for the figure. I can always go back to add more swooshing and background later.


I first put in the red-violet shadows, for warmth, then for contrast I used DS ultramarine blue in the cooler areas of the figure, to really bring it to life.


I added in the bright red ribbon, just because I was feeling gutsy. I painted some soft greenish lines coming from the tips of the fingers of her left hand, and I also did some stokes of yellow around the orb the little sprite is offering. 


The above picture also clearly shows the first wash step where I pulled color away from the fairy, but let it slide over the little sprite, since she is not the main focus. 

Wow, the camera really distorts some of these colors from picture to picture... sorry!!


Anyways, here I started in on her outfit and wings. The dress was still wet when I took this picture, that why it's shiny. 


For the dress, I started with yellows as a base color and then used oranges from my Yarkas and watered down DS cadmium red. I also added some DS ultramarine blue and the same red-violet in the folds.


For the pants, I used a lot of this watered down blueish-green color left over on my pallet that I have no idea what colors formed it... That's partly the joy of watercolors over other mediums: colors you painted with months ago can still be used, just add water! More DS ultramarine was used in the shadows as well. I also poured a lot of watered down yellows over the pants then as it was still wet, then I mopped it up. This was done so that I could go for a bit of a glow and to give them a worn look, rather than leaving them crisp white. This way I could also leave the whites for the brightest parts around the orb, wings, etc. 


For the wings, i spent a lot of time adding small amounts of brush strokes, then pressing a paper towel down so they didn't come off as too harsh. I wanted to create the stained glass dragon-fly winged look that the great Stephanie Law is so good at. 

This next picture is a tad blurry-- I'm sorry! I didn't know at the time! 


Anyways, I painted in some of her hair with yarka yellows and watered down browns. 


For the trailing smoky looking bits flowing from her hands, I first painted these with clear water, then spattered in some greens, reds, oranges, whatever I felt like and let them all intermingle as I literally turned my paper all angles, and voila!: I have some really interesting wet-into-wet effects in a contained part of my painting.


That is about as much as I care to fit into one blog entry. More steps will come later as I did finish the piece in one day (yesterday), but looking at it today, I might want to add in a few more touch-ups before I scan it in.


Stay tuned!!