sketchbook

Sketchbook – non-embellishment/ruddle

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non-embellishment_ruddle_sketch

Back in March, my partner came up with a fun art exercise. We used a random word generator to assign us both two words, which were to form the basis for our sketch. We had limited time to create the pencil sketch, and then the rest was done in ball point pen, so that we could not erase. We worked in limited canvas space, too.

My words were

non-embellishment: something that is not ornamental, unadorned, not an embellishment (if concerning something said in the telling of a story, a non-embellishment is factual, and in no way an elaboration).

…and…

ruddle: a red pigment consisting of ocher.

So, we have a young girl drawing a curtain(?) over the run-down out-skirts of a city.

I’m pretty proud of the ornamentation of the wall. It depicts a great many-eyed serpent that features in the local folklore, as well as so many hidden birds, and some plant life. I’m proudest of the bricks and shingles, though.

As I’m working on the pages for The Here, After Now, I’m going to keep dabbling away on these little side projects to keep myself flexible. I’m having a grand ole time.

In the Toque of Madness: nightmarket paintover experiment_01

experiment

paintover nightmarket_01

Paintover of a digital photograph.

I was working on the colours for our current project, working title, In the Toque of Madness. The first scene, as we’ve drafted it, takes place in the night market. So of course, we went to our local night market with a dear friend of ours who happens to be a fine photographer. She provided us with a slew of reference photos which I’m already finding useful.

Go visit her. She’s a dear, and she’s a good eye behind a camera.

I thought I’d play around with one of her photographs, a blurry one, to see if I could get a nifty stylistic thing going with my paint tools. I’m trying to emulate what my monotypes and monoprints look like, with the sort of heavy,  brushed strokes and thick blacks. I dunno if I’ll revisit this, but I’d like to use different styles and looks to evoke different moods in this story, so something like this might be on the table for certain scenes.