For today’s 30-minute sketchbook project I used a bird’s eye view of my simple white mug and used colored pencils (in color this time, not just black). I went a little crazy buying earth tone Polychromos pencils, so used browns for the shading on the mug. For the background, to help it recede from the warm tones of the mug, I used green, grey, and indigo. Plus a little yellow on the left side to suggest light coming from that direction.
Colored pencils are taking me too long for my 30-minute time limit. I either need to figure out a way to use them faster or switch to a different medium.
I’m also considering participating in Inktober! I haven’t done that challenge before. And I was interested in what the creator Jake Parker says about creativity coming out of two things: constraints and accountability. His goal was to get better at using a brush pen for inking by using it every day for a month and sharing what he made online. You can hear his thoughts on this and the origins of the project in this video:
It was a coincidence to hear him say that because just last weekend I had decided to put some constraints on my daily painting habit so that I could focus my energy on improving different skills. And of course to help keep myself accountable I started this new blog specifically for my art journey.
Now I just have to force myself not to buy a new brush! Jake makes the Winsor & Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable Watercolor Brush sound pretty amazing. But at this point I’m dedicated to using synthetic hairs instead of animal hairs. I definitely don’t need any inks for the project — I already have so many options in my supplies:
- fountain pen with blue-black non-waterproof ink
- fountain pen with waterproof black ink
- dip pen
- india ink
- white ink
- brown fountain pen ink
- Gelly Rolls in white and gold
- a bottle of black non-waterproof ink
- Micron and PITT artist pens
- brush pens
- plus watercolor brushes in lots of sizes including small 00, 0, and 2 rounds, scripts, and a liner
