Category: Pen & Ink

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Painting and Drawing the Same Subject

Painting and Drawing the Same Subject

Garlic Study – Pencil

If you’ve noticed my body of work over the past year or so, you’ll notice that much of my work is of the same subject or subjects. Perhaps you ask yourself why Keith concentrates on one or another subject rather than trying new things…well, that’s what this article is about.

They say “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and in some ways we artists are, in fact, trying to imitate what we see made either by the hand of God or the hand of man. Artists take what we see, process that image through the filter of our lifetime experience, then attempt to imitate what we see in our mind’s eye. Continue reading “Painting and Drawing the Same Subject”

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Putzing with Portraits

We R Tacoma

This past week I spent putzing with portraits. If you’ve followed along on my posts you’ve seen a couple of my previous posts where I’ve attempted to draw or paint a portrait.

One of the first I did was back in 2017 from a selfie Ilene and I took while attending a Tacoma Rainier’s game. The photo really doesn’t do it justice as the skin tones are a bit off here but on the actual painting they look just fine.

Fr Methodios & His Hat

I’ve also done some pen & ink sketches over the past couple years and been OK with them. Either way, painting or pen & ink you’ll see a trend and that’s where they are pretty much caricatures rather than more realistic renditions.

That all changed this past week when I discovered a workshop on Skillshare  about portraits by Sade J. So I rolled up my sleeves, pulled out a couple of shades of watercolor and gouache and below are the results.

Continue reading “Putzing with Portraits”

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November Is Almost Gone!

Oliver Legacy Elite II

November is almost gone and I haven’t posted in over two months…what’s up? Well…let me tell you. In mid September we drove up to Hohenwald, Tennessee to pick up our brand new Oliver Elite II travel trailer. We knew when we “landed” last year in Fredericksburg we’d be selling our 40′ motorhome and downsizing to a travel trailer and it FINALLY happened.

Along the way Ilene and I took plenty of photographs so I could come back and sketch/paint some of our experiences but I haven’t gotten around to them yet. Why you ask? Well…let me tell you. Continue reading “November Is Almost Gone!”

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Back to Basics

Creating Textures…

It’s time for me to get back to basics. After a month of pumping out paintings for World Watercolor Month I’ve decided what I need to do now is work the basics. What do I mean by basics? I’m glad you asked.

My “style”, if you will, pretty much revolves around pen & ink and watercolor. I’m not an oil painter. I don’t work in pastels or acrylics and my style is based upon a sort of realism that’s, I believe, a bit like illustration. With that in mind, as I look at my recent works I want to delve deeper into my pen & ink work and basic watercolor. Continue reading “Back to Basics”

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Sky Studies

One of Two-Wet on Wet vs Wet on Dry

This week I spent some time working on sky studies. Clouds and sunsets, colors and techniques to improve my landscapes.

Prompted by World Watercolor Month for clouds last week, I decided to spend more time getting to know skies a bit more. After all, I’ve spent a lot of time up there and I certainly have seen some beautiful skies.

Two of two Wet-on-Dry

Steve Mitchell, The Mind of Watercolor, had a good tutorial on clouds the other day working in both wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques. As you can see in these to photographs each has its own merits depending upon the affect I’m trying to achieve. Naturally I didn’t want to waste the paint and time so what do we to with two cloud/sky studies? We add a landscape of course!

Continue reading “Sky Studies”

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Of Pen & Ink

Pink Crape Myrtle

I like to experiment with different techniques of pen & ink. Recently I bought a dip pen with several nibs and went to work on a couple of botanical studies.

On the Pink Crape Myrtle painting to the left I penciled in the overall outline before going to the pen & ink. Usually when I’m using a fountain pen I tend to just draw out the sketch without first penciling in the outlines.  Freely inking the sketch forces me to concentrate more as I draw my subject. Continue reading “Of Pen & Ink”

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Quantity-Quality-Or Both

Photo and work in progress

Is quantity, quality, or is both that are important when it comes to learning to paint with watercolor or sketch with pen & ink?

Learning a craft is much like playing a sport—to get good at it, one must practice, practice, and practice some more. Sports legends like Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and Tiger Woods spent hours, days, and years practicing their sport to get to the level they have all achieved. Continue reading “Quantity-Quality-Or Both”

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Artists Journal

Happy Flag Day!

One of the reasons I decided to get serious about painting and drawing was I saw it as a way to keep track of our journey as retirees. I’m not really sure where I  got the idea of drawing/painting as we traveled but it’s certainly turned into quite a habit.

What I do know is on January 5th of 2018 I started my first sketch book and in December of the same year I drew my last sketch in that book. I know that in the beginning I used pencil but by the end I was mostly doing pen and ink. In fact, if you look closely at the picture above you can see the sketch on the other side of the page showing through…the sketchbook was designed for pencil, not pen and ink…oh well. Continue reading “Artists Journal”