Sketches for thoughts
Artist studio, Sketchbook spreads, Graphic Novel update and My plein air kits
Hello everyone! Can you believe summer is over? Im gonna miss the warmth, sunny days. I'm the kind of person who gets charged with positive energy when it's sunny and totally forgets those hot sweaty days, but at the same time, I know for sure I’ll miss the sun in november when the weather its all gloomy. On it with the newsletter!
Artist Studio News
After years of wondering and spending life in rents avoiding to buy furniture because I knew that on the next move Ill have to carry it with me, Ive finally decided to get a new desk and a dresser for my art supplies and for the sake of my spine.
And now that I can see all my art supples together in 1 place, Ive come to realise once again that I have more than enough supplies for the next 2 years probably, both watercolor and gouache paints, brushes and papers. Also just wanted to add that the fact that I mention buying stuff in this post I dont want you as a reader to think oh I gotta buy it too. I recommend you to research and find how you want your studio and desk to be. Its a personal choice I made, only time will tell from now on.
Sketchbook spreads
This is an exercise I sometimes do in my sketchbook, I choose 2 colors, usually complements and I just play with the contrast and lighting letting the colors flow and create small shapes. In the middle of painting I realised the blue could have the role of a river but only after finishing I realised the small figures might be kids playing with a bug. So i called it simply ‘ Childhood by the river’.
Graphic Novel update
Ive come to conclusion Ive got enough time to dive into the story workflow only in the weekends, because for me at least, it takes time to reread everything I wrote so far, ideas and overall organise thoughts and build from what Ive left it last time.
I have changed the name for the characters in my graphic novel and reconsider changing the theme a little bit.
I want to convey both the main characters journey and establish a connection between the worlds they live and our real life. How both have similar issues regading respect for nature and human greed. But its takes time. Today I highly hope to finish the character design I did for this cute fella, as you can see Ive change his name from Talis to Morus because Ive decided to associate their name to specific latin names of fruits and plants. Can you guess where does his name comes from? Its an often a disregarded fruit, Morus Nigra aka Mulberry.
My plein air ‘kits’
Ive been asked a while ago what are my go to setups when it comes to plein air painting. I gotta mention Im not part of the ‘buying’ culture , what I mean is I dont like to spend hundreds of dollars on art supplies I see promoted on youtube for example, I’d rather prefer to make my own and since crafting is a hobby of mine it would be a perfect fit.
When I go outside to paint I always choose watercolor, because its faster to mix colors and easier to carry.If you’ve never tried go plein-air I highly recommend it. When I paint outside I do a couple of tricks. First of all, I recommend painting with a buddy or 2, if youre uncomfortable like me in public it will be better to have art buddies coming along. But lets dive in with the palette kits.
Because I dont spend a lot of money on my supplies, most of the watercolors I own I have been using ever since Ive started to paint a few years ago, if anything, I actually minimize the colors that I use when I go plein air 12, 8, 6 etc. At some point I did bought different brands to try. Daniel Smith, Qor, Schimncke, White Nights and to be honest, most of them dont make it a big differents, as long as they’re lightfast, they’re fine. The trick is, actually, to know the pigment origin they got ( example:PY stands for pigment yellow; PB- pigment blue and so on), many browns and greens have mixed black, yellows and reds in them, so the mix will be unexpected during your painting.
This one I call ‘ The Big One’ because it has 10 full pans. Its made with a soap box Ive found in Greece and with it I use this clip with magnet on 1 side, so I can attach my box easily and its quite sturdy too. Ive recently bought it from aliexpress.
When I plein air I also reconsider the weight of my supplies and since I mostly use metal stuff I gotta make other things lightweight. All of my kits have sponges and water recipients, I dont enjoy painting if I dont have the setup comfortable and everything I need available. I like to think its the least I can do since I get out of my comfort zone by going outside.
The 2nd kit has a smaller box inside a bigger one (insert box joke, I dont know any jokes but…maybe you do hehe). I call this plain, ‘the 2 boxes kit’. I like to collect small boxes like these so one day while I was searching for a way to use a box inside a box it just happened for these to fit perfectly and close fine. They’re 8 colors, nothing fancy, the box its actually quite unpretty in my opinion but it does its work and thats all that matters. For this I use this clip thing that used to hold plastic containers for oils but I removed them and I attached a magnet to and clip it only my sketchbook.
And lastly, the smaller (and practical) kit ive ever saw is this thing my bf got me for Christmas last year, from Temu. It came with both water recipient and magnetic clip. I use it the least because I tend to paint bigger now, but of course since its also a cute useful gift I use it every now and then.
And thats it :D let me know what you think about the way I use these kits. Ive updated them in the course of a year, making them to fit my preference.
Let me know if you want to know the colors I use. They are generally quite basic- yellows, blues and reds mostly, each of them with its cold and warm version, a yellowish green, a brown and a raw sienna. Whats most important to me is the pigment in it, I use single pigment ones because I like to get the purest form of color when I mix them and gradually darken them. This way I can choose easily to leave parts lighter, which I recommend doing with watercolor, cause once you make it dark, you can’t really undo it.
Below are pictures that show how I attach my kits to a sketchbook.
*this last sketch was made using another reference artist work whose name I do not know and I made it just to test this sketchbook’s paper.
Until next time take care <3
With your two color exercise, I have to force myself to do something like that because it’s quite likely that my final image will be a blob. But, then again, I am willing to make ugly projects just to try out an idea or unfamiliar technique. Not that most of my techniques are particularly developed
I’ve never used a clip before to attach to my sketchbook. I need to do that the next time I do plein air.