Sunday, September 14, 2014

New Hat

Got a new hat for Wyoming.

5 comments:

Dennis said...

Hi James, nice hat!

Yesterday I got a few minutes to spare and did my first watercolour sketch/study (two small/quick triceratops skulls http://tinyurl.com/ppmbfj5
^^) after watching watercolour in the wild and following your sepia wash drawing post.

I've noticed in your video that you used a lot off watercolour pencils. Would you recommend getting some pencils if you are a beginner? And colours? I bought the Winsor and Newton pocket watercolor set with 12 colours you've recommended in your blog post about Watercolor in the Wild Materials.

I hope your having a nice trip, I really enjoy reading your posts everyday, especially since I have to travel a lot, from and to school everyday.

Gr, Dennis.

James Gurney said...

Thanks, Dennis. Yes, just using sepia watercolor is a great way to get used to the brushes, the paper, and the density of pigment. I'd recommend buying just one or two watercolor pencils from each of various brands at your art store. You can get dark brown ones to start out, and just see how you like them, and experiment with ways to combine them with watercolor. I don't always use them, but sometimes find they can describe things that are hard to describe with watercolor alone.

escuderoimagine said...

The Confessions of James: -Yes, I've worked to Jurassic Park
http://www.thesambarnes.com/wp-content/uploads/digital-account-management-clever-girl.jpg

;D

Dennis said...

Thank you for your reply. I'll look into them. :)

Dan said...

I love how the hat has a big metal pole on top with the McD's logo on it! :)

This weekend I did my first real plein air sketch with watercolor pencils (the Faber Castell variety), and my first with portable watercolors (the Schmincke 12-pan set). Used the Niji portable water brushes for both.

Both were interesting and fun. The pencils allowed me to go for textures more easily, but the real watercolors had much more vibrant, translucent colors. (Those Schmincke paints are really nice.) I found the two mediums to be about equally portable when used with the water brushes.

I also took your advice from "Watercolor in the Wild" and filled a water brush with Higgins fountain pen ink. That proved handy for both of the sketches, and I also use it for plain old pen sketches now, to get larger areas of black more quickly.

The sketches I did this weekend were really mostly washes over a simple line drawing in pen and ink, with only minimal attention to values. I'll probably try a monochromatic sketch using sepia next, in order to try to focus on values.