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SPQR BLUES Chapter V

After the Volcano
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Volcano Day

by klio on 24 August 2017 at 9:04 am
Posted In: Uncategorized

It’s volcano day, the “official” pub date of the printed SPQR Blues chapters I-IV book. Happy end of the world (temporarily and only locally)!

I’ll try to put some art up today!

2 Comments

Sketch of the day: daily watercolour #5

by klio on 10 July 2017 at 3:00 pm
Posted In: sketch of the day

After doodling a bee, I got it in my head I’d draw Wonder Woman in the leftover space, but somehow ended up turning her into Venus (the “on the battlefield with Felix” version), as you do. The greens and yellows are modern-style paints; the rest are from the ancient palette.

The sample paper–you can see its specs in the image–is Canson’s Moulin du Roy. I have a sketch pad with their Montval watercolour paper, and don’t like the way it handles water, and I think paints look dull on it. This is a higher-end paper, while Montval is meant to be student grade.

I like this Moulin du Roy paper a lot. It’s less textured than some cold press papers (fine grain); it feels smooth and easy to work on. Buckling/warping, when not taped down, is minimal. It was happy to let me do a light pencil sketch, erase it, do another, erase it, about 10 times. The inked line was done with a 005 (very fine) Micron pen, which went down okay, considering this is textured paper and not the best surface for a pen like that.

There’s something…I dunno…a little bit dirty about the surface, as if it had been left out to collect dust, but I’m not sure whether that’s literally true, whether it picked up dirt in my bag, or whether there are grey fibers or other particles in the paper itself. I didn’t notice it until I was peering at the art close up. I feel like the colours lose some of their vividness on this paper, but the fine-grain texture might be a fair trade off.

Update after holding it up to an east-facing window: Actually, colours look very vivid in the sort of direct bright sunlight one isn’t supposed to expose one’s paintings to.

Non-staining colours don’t lift off this paper with the breezy ease of the previous papers I’ve tested this month. Paints seem to dry more quickly, which is good if you’re impatient like me. My homemade earth-tone paints blend and layer easily on it. I have another sample sheet of the cold press, and I’d like to do more tests with it, and I’d like to try the heavier weight version. It makes me want to go out and do architectural paintings, of ruined temples and tumbled columns….

└ Tags: sotd-201707
1 Comment

Sketch of the day: daily watercolour #4

by klio on 9 July 2017 at 3:06 pm
Posted In: sketch of the day

I let this dry a few days before going back to it so I could try layering paint. In the meantime I seem to have forgotten how I was doing the ponytail so that style could be continued for the rest of her hair. Lots of tweaking and changing is still in progress.

Still, every time I think I’ve pushed the paper too far with corrections and new layers, it puts up with me.

Iusta on  Saunders Waterford 300gsm Cold Press/Not

└ Tags: ancient palette, sotd-201707, watercolour
4 Comments

Sketch of the day: daily watercolour #3

by klio on 5 July 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: sketch of the day

This is another paper made by St Cuthberts Mill, called Bockingford. It’s 140lb cold press, like the Millford paper, though it feels ever so slightly stiffer, and the texture is ever so slightly rougher. When doused with the same amount of water as I put on the Millford, it warped and didn’t dry back flat on its own like the Millford–but it flattened out after I forgot it in the scanner for a while. Layering on this paper is easier; I’ve been adding layer after layer on the skin tone, and not only didn’t accidentally scrub off the previous layers of paint (as with the Millford), but see no damage to the paper.

The manufacturer says: “traditionally made on a cylinder mould machine…surface is created using natural woollen felts that give it a distinctive random texture. Appreciated for its excellent colour lifting abilities. This is an extremely forgiving watercolour paper.”

└ Tags: sotd-201707
1 Comment

Sketch of the day: daily watercolour #2

by klio on 4 July 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: sketch of the day

Today’s paper is Daler-Rowney’s Langton Prestige, 140lb/300gsm cold press/”not.”

I didn’t like it all that much. This drawing incorporates homemade paints, Indigo, Japanese-style Kuretake Gansai Tambi paint (did not play well with the paper), and various commercial-brand watercolours (Sennelier, M Graham, MaimeriBlu, & Daniel Smith). The paper holds up perfectly fine to lots of water (which seems to dry oddly quickly), to lifting/scrubbing off paint, and layering. I think the various paints look a bit lifeless, in a way that’s hard to quantify.

└ Tags: sotd-201707
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