What’s on my drawing board, August 21 2019

Original artwork on drawing board ©KarenSmith
Karen Smith drawing board August 21 2019 ©KarenSmith

Oranges and lemons… and vectors.

This weeks drawing board has some acrylic paintings in progress, and some digital artwork.

Top row drawing board: Notebooks –  Green and brown colour swatches from Winsor & Newton. Sketchbook study of Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne. Print out of a digital repeat pattern I have designed, featuring leaves and vines.

Middle row: Sketchbook with abstract watercolour oranges. | Print out of my Lemons digital vector art. I have taken my original lemons painting and converted it to a digital file using vector lines, this creates a flexible digital file that can be scaled easily without any loss of image quality. I scanned my original artwork into my computer, and drew over the top freehand using a wacom digitizer pad, this keeps the integrity of my “drawing style”. I think if I just scanned the artwork and converted it using the software I’d lose some of the quirky elements of my original drawing (mistakes and all!). | Original pencil sketch for oranges painting. | Print out of my digitized Jacobean flower, I’m probably going to turn this into a woodblock for relief printing.
Far right -in progress, a mixed media painting on a wooden panel of a Jacobean flower. The yellow around the sides is low tack masking tape, to keep the raw wood clean during the painting process.

Bottom row: Sketchbook showing my colour swatches for my lemons ink and watercolour painting. My method with ink and watercolour drawings is to ink in the lines first and then add the watercolour washes on top. After I’ve drawn the lines, I take a few photocopies so I can test out my colour schemes before starting on the final piece.
In progress acrylic painting of oranges on a wooden panel. I’m finding the smooth wood of the panel really nice to work with. I begin with a dark background and add the fruit and leaves in increasing layers of acrylic paint (flow formula), building up colour luminosity and intensity as I go. The leaves look green, but are just a result of a single layer of Hansa Yellow over the dark blue background. Before starting the painting I applied a few coats of white gesso, sanding in between layers, to create a really smooth surface.
Far right – my usual Winsor & Newton paints and palette with Art Spectrum paints.

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