Played around with technique today–I’ve been wanting to find new stuff to try with watercolor, since, let’s face it, originals sell, and I got the mad idea to put some in the Coppercon art show in September. However, after Trinoc, I’m back down to about four originals, including furry stuff, and so it’s back to hammering out originals I go. But I’m determined to try some new techniques–I may never get the same skill with watercolor or acrylic that I manage with digital, but hey, y’never know.

Arthur Rackham evidentally used to ink everything in sepia, so I picked up some sepia pens to try that. I may also have to try doing the underpainting in coffee, which I’ve heard some artists use (and heck, I’ll try anything once as long as it’s not expensive or painful.) My big project today was a random experiment idea that I had–I did the sketch in my standard digital-print-project thing, but rather than ink it, I went over the lines with sepia watercolor pencil. When I watercolored over that, the lines bled a bit, and softened, but retained more definition than if I hadn’t penciled them, while not being nearly as aggressive as inking. Parisian blue and sepia are a fabulous color combo, by the way. While this is just a quick and dumb little piece, probably inspired by too many Discworld novels, I like the technique, and I’ll have to try it again sometime.

The Tortoise At The Heart Of The Mountain

Leave a Reply