Layers

Color, Character, and Clarity

Welcome to Fishing with John! (No, we’re not fishing and I’m not John.)

I’m more of a draftsman than a painter. It’s not that I can’t paint, I just haven’t put the time into being able to handle those materials intuitively. I am most comfortable with ink and monochrome, however I do have a solid grasp of color theory, and have been known to dabble from time to time.

I know painters can do what they want, but I feel like most painters typically mix their colors on the pallet. And it’s easy to think of that as “the right way” to paint. As much as I try, I inevitably end up mixing my colors on the page. Ultimately, that stems back to me thinking and behaving as a draftsman. My first introductions to color theory and color mixing was using oil pastels and color pencils in high school, and chalk pastel as a college freshman. With these dry mediums, you get to see the magic of the colors mix on the page as you draw and build up layers. I didn’t have a lot of painting assignments in college and the few that I did (and side projects I did after), I did my best to utilize my palette and mix my colors there but it’s never been intuitive for me.

I wanted to spend some time practicing with my watercolors. So last week for the first time in a long time, I broke out my watercolors and did a little portrait study. I really wanted to “do it right“ and just use my “real“ watercolors and mix the colors on my pallet. But it didn’t take long for that to go out the window and I reached for my watercolor crayons and just started mixing my colors on the page, like the draftsman that I am. I like the idea of using only traditional watercolors, but I think I’m always going to lean towards my preference of dry medium and utilize water-soluble crayons, and pencils.

For this one I used Koi Watercolors, Lyra Aquacolor crayons, and an odd assortment of plain ol’ color pencils for fine details and line clarity. It’s hard for me to paint and not have it categorized under “mixed media” but that’s OK.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more at peace with the idea of leaning into my own strengths, and not feeling the need to master every discipline. It’s OK to look at someone else’s art, and admit “I can’t do that.” Obviously, you can spend the time to learn how to do that, but as I get older, the more I realize that my time is not infinite. I have particular strengths and techniques that I have cultivated and it’s OK to lean into those. Of course it’s important to go outside your comfort zone and mix things up, however, you don’t have to reinvent yourself every time you try something new. Michelangelo was a sculptor, and it informed the way that he painted. I’m a draftsman and it informs the way I paint. If anything, I guess I’m writing this to remind myself that there is nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, let’s get into some more of this month’s figure sketches. Aside from the old men of Pinterest, I used videos 650, 645, 641, and 651 from croquis.café

Speaking of mixing things up, I did a fun little page of old fisherman. My main focus here was pushing character and expressiveness.

This week I also embraced the visual noise of layered scribbles.

With a few exceptions.

Gestures are not sacred. Sometimes it’s fun to let the layers take on a life of their own, and produce a page that is somewhat abstracted.

While focusing on character, and keeping to the two minute timeline, I managed to produce something fun and expressive here.

I do enjoy the noisy, red and gray layers.

However, this time I opted for clarity and inked/erased.

Sometimes I like noisy layers. Sometimes I like clarity. Sometimes both.

No underdrawing this time, just two-minute ink sketches in the foreground and one minute graphite, gestures in the background.

Five-minute inks on two-minute graphite.

Anyway, go outside your comfort zone, but also celebrate your strengths. Add clarity when you need to, but feel free to get messy and build those layers.

-Calvin