Park test

On to the equipment!
I sat down and did a quick study of my backpack and bag. Might as well practice at drawing inanimate objects, which I've been ignoring for most of my life. It shows.

My cellphone was in my pocket and my money & documents were tucked away in my bag: they were virtually weightless and I didn't count them in the overall weight.
Both pieces were very small and light and I could barely feel the pack on my shoulders. Splitting the weight was a good move, especially if I can avoid having it all on one shoulder. My spine thanks me kindly.
Finding stuff was not confusing because everything I needed to use often was in my shoulder bag.
Although. The ideal condition would be dumping the unnecessary and only have one bag with me.
A waist bag would be perfect, too bad I don't have one big enough.
Until then, we'll see how I can refine my packing strategies so that my back doesn't get hurt and the stuff I need is ready to be plucked out of the bag at any moment - which is not going to happen if I'm only carrying a backpack.

Anyway, I sat down again and tried to paint the meadow and ruins in front of me. I know I have a problem with large, deep fields of a single color. I struggle with depth.

Yay. Just one week before I'm finally able to replace my old scanner

I had a hard time beginning this because I couldn't place the objects correctly. I needed to frame the scene with my hands and then my camera to see it more clearly! Sheesh.
There was a hint of blue sky, but my scanner is flipping the bird at me and some color and detail got lost. I have a couple ideas to make this thing better next time:

- I should choose a place where foreground, middleground and background are more evident. I feel the need for a foreground to frame the image
- Perhaps a path in the grass, going off to the background, could help communicate better perspective and depth?
- I'll use a dry brush (or I'll use the brush sideways) to get a more randomic, leafy shape for the trees

There were lots of huge colonies of those cute red "little devils", as we call them. I noticed there was a more slender, "tattooed" type and a fatty variant with less black markings. I thought it was because of gender (especially funny considering the rounder variant has some kind of bikini top marking!), but turns out the fully tattooed ones are adults, while the others are not fully developed.

Firebugs. Firebugs everywhere.
And this was the smallest patch I could find.

I didn't do much more. I had a fast walk, some stretching and a good book. The bag and backpack never felt heavy, so I guess I can go ahead and try a proper field trip.
I noticed I didn't feel comfortable using the gray sketchbook for landscape sketching, and I might as well bring less pencils with me anyway. I should be able to reduce the weight if I focus on watercolor only, and I prefer copics to pencils for gesture drawing and tonal sketches.
That's all for today!

Plein air

Lack of motivation hits hard, but I've got to the core of the problem.
I'm setting two new goals for myself, and boy do I need to achieve them for my own well-being.
I'll talk about it later - now have some watercolor stuff I painted on the spot.

Prunus log. My grandma's garden in the countryside is always my favorite place to be when I need a break from technology.

Still flat, but I feel I'm improving in rendering volumes and textures in watercolors.

A red house I could see from the balcony at my grandmother's house. A sudden storm drove me away sooner than I hoped. I struggle with trees A LOT. I'm so inexperienced at drawing buildings, but I'm starting to put more time and effort into the sketching phase. I really can't afford to paint directly with such an alien subject.

A sleepy old man I sketched on the train and painted later while relaxing in Verona with my boyfriend. Lovely trip if somewhat short!

This was painted on bad generic sketchbook paper so yeah, the texture sucks and the colors look so dead. Watercolor paper is so expensive

Watercolor week

An apple a day...
I've decided to start a simple training program to practice on the kind of stuff I need to improve on: one exercise from reference per day, for a week. I had a fun Watercolor Week and I plan to start a Clouds Week soon. 

Clouds are nasty. 

Speedsketching at the library

• I'm proud I was brave enough to try my hand at interiors. Though the results are debatable
• I'm getting a better handle on working with fast blotches of color and leaving white paper areas
• Gestures aren't too stiff

• Stuff looks sloppy without that black pen outline 
• Something went wrong with the perspective down there. It's weird because I was very careful when sketching the scene - I must have relaxed too much and messed it up during the painting phase

Experience gained: 4 points!

- I MUST do this again, especially with interiors. The amount of skill and confidence gained when painting from life is extremely valuable. I need to think about color and light conditions on the spot and note things down for future reference!
- When geometric perspective is involved, do NOT paint until the sketch makes sense
- I'll mix in less water and more pigment. I need to manage strong, saturated color to make my sketches really expressive and bright and, most of all, not in need of a pen outline :v
- Drawing with a friend helps so much. It's incredible: I was always scared to show my stuff to others, but having someone to work with extensively helps exorcizing, in a way. I feel brave and careless and it's so new to me

Hello watercolors

Why hello - here's a watercolor sketch I made roughly two years ago. Finally introducing some colored traditional stuff! Now for the sad part: I haven't touched watercolors since this flamingo.

Let's see here:

• My beloved fineliner seems to cooperate with watercolors too. I'd like to try different media and/or ink colors for the line drawing part
• It doesn't look too dull for a watercolor sketch

• The face part looks confusing - too many details when a few wide blothes of color would have worked fine
• Colors need to look more lively. I want to see more contrast (duh) and clash 
• I probably worked with dirty water and slightly murky colors

Experience gained: 4 points!

- I want to practice more with mixing various media and watercolor. I like the outcome! I'll experiment with different ink colors, too
- I need to work with wide areas of base color before jumping into details (its face D: )
- Some consistent speedpainting from reference should help me manage tones and values better
- Be clean, Dev. No murky water! You want your watercolor paintings to be bright