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3 Steps to a More Colorful Watercolor Pallet

Written on May 8, 2012 in Painting, Process, Step By Step, Watercolor

I have a confession to make, in my spare time I like to study drawing and painting. Please don’t tell my high school teachers this as I’m sure that hearing that would give them a heart attack.

My intention with this post is to share my study habits so that you might see something new or have a fresh idea, and thus become inspired to to find a new ways to fine tune your own craft. I think that it is super important to continually grow and stretch our boundaries, especially for illustrators.

Summary: Mixing colors, and figuring out how to utilize those mixes in a painting can be a daunting task to start with. I for one, have ruined more than one good drawing with the hap-hazard application of paint. Achieving a fuller understanding of how the colors work together on the is a nice place to start.

Source Material

One of the things that I’ve accumulated over the years are a bunch of instructional “how to” books. As with all things, some of these have been immensely useful,while others… not so much. One of the books that I’ve found a lot of value in has been the “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Watercolor” edited by Marian Appellof, which is where I am drawing this exercise from. The original source for this exercise is David Millard’s chapter “Getting to Know Your Colors: Mixing “Chickens.”

Getting To Know Your Friends

In watercolor learning the qualities of each of the colors can eventually become like second nature to you. With the application of some conscientious practice, you will begin to ‘instinctively’ know which paint to go for, and why. You’ll learn whether it’s a granular color, if it stains or not, and when you’re mixing colors on the fly, you’ll want to know how aggressive the color is when mixing with other colors. As you become more familiar with each color, your choices become more natural and deliberate.

Essentially this exercise is about systematically mixing a series of colors in pairs so that you will experience each paint and the qualities thereof.

Choose a Pallet

The first thing we’ll need are some colors to mix with. For my example, I intentionally used this small and simple pallet of colors:

A basic array of colors

Cadmium Red
Permanent Rose
Cadmium Yellow
Turner Yellow
French Ultramarine Blue
Cerulean Blue
Cobalt Blue
Yellow Ochre
Raw Sienna
Burnt Sienna
Burnt Umber

You can see right away that these are mostly pairs of cools and warms of the primary colors, with some earth tones thrown in the mix.

The earth-tones are there to begin to explore creating gray’s. I’ll be building on this information in a later post, suffice it to say that one cannot overstate the importance of a good gray in a painting; Renoir anyone?

The Exercise:

So, let’s start with an end product, this next image is a page of my Warms and Cools all mixed together. I wanted to remember to match each color with every other color. Let’s see… did I miss any?

A Page of Primary Cool/Warm Mixtures

But this experiment is about the experience, right?! So let’s take a closer look with some step by step images to see the basic process of how these mixtures were made.

Bonus tip:

One important thing to note during this process is that it is important to use two separate containers for your water; a dirty water and a clean water. Part of the purpose of this exercise is to create clear colors, and to do this it is best to clean the brushes in the dirty water, and then use the clean water to mix the colors with. It just wouldn’t do to try to mix clear colors with dirty water.

Permanent Rose

Step One: make a puddle of pure color.

Notice the tail of color coming down from the puddle, we’re going to use these to mix the colors.

Cobalt Blue

Step Two: make a puddle of a different color right next to the first one.

Notice how juicy the puddles of color are. We really want to set up a rich mixture by charging each of the colors with a lot of pigment. So become aware of the balance between the amount of water to the amount of pigment.

A Really Nice Purple Mixture

Step Three: Mix

I just take a swipe of color across the two tails and mix them together in a new third puddle of color. This has to be one of my favorite purples out there. The two cool colors of Cobalt and Permanent Rose really play well together. Not surprisingly they make a very cool purple.

Bonus Tip:

One of the tricks that I’ve picked up over the years is how to create a wash that has clean sharp edges on it’s outside and a smooth color on the inside. For a long time I tried to do long continuous washes starting at the top of a shape and then pulling the wash down; which can work if it’s small (kinda like these washes are) but becomes really difficult if the shape is complex and/or large. Somewhere along the way I read about drawing the border of the wash first then filling it in with color, and that creates a nice crisp shape with a consistant color inside it.

First I draw a square

Then I fill it in with a wash

"Crossing the Streams"

This mixture was between the cool green-blue of Cerulean and the warm yellow of Raw Sienna, which come together to create a neutral earthy green.

Cerulean Blue and Burnt Sienna

Here we go again, but this time I have no idea what’s going to happen. I originally threw the Cerulean Blue onto the pallet because its a color that I like by its self, but I didn’t have a clear sense of how it plays with the others.

Cerulean and Burnt Sienna | Step two

It’s a match up between the cool green-blue and the warm earthy red of Burnt Sienna. Oh god… what’s going to happen?!

What color is that?!

Blammo!… it’s a muddy, messy, grayish, color…(yea?)… and where on earth would you ever find that color? Trees, rocks, dirt.. who paints that stuff anyway?

My Page of Grays

Conclusion:

There you have it, with a simple set of steps repeated over and over again, you can achieve a myriad of different outcomes. I hope that you will challenge yourself by doing this, and as you go along see if you can start to guess what the mixtures are going to do and how they’ll be. I certainly was surprised more than once. One last tip that I’ll leave you with (and I may live to regret this,) is that I do talk to myself out loud when I am doing these exercises. The verbalization helps to emphasis the experience for me.

If you like this post and found it valuable please leave a comment and/or feel free to share it across the web. If you decide to try this practice, I think it’d be cool to post your results on your blog and then share a link in the comments section below.

Cheers,

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12 Incendiary Ideas from the SCBWI Spring Spirit Conference

Written on April 23, 2012 in Marketing and Promotion, Real Life Adventures of an Illustrator, SCBWI

Summary: A brief recap of the the 2012 SCBWI Spring Spirit Conference followed by 12 ideas that ignited my imagination.

This past weekend, I attended the SCBWI North/Central Region’s Spring Spirit Conference. I have been to conferences before and this one was quite wonderful. I can’t tell you what I was expecting, but ironically this experience exceeded all my expectations.

As an illustrator in a writer dominated group, I was super pleased at all the effort that the North/Central team put into this event to make sure that there was plenty of good stuff for the illustrators in attendance. That being said, I did glean some gems from the writers and editors who gave presentations as well.

The presenters were exceptional. Along with doing their own presentations, they evaluated manuscripts in written critiques for the writers, and for the illustrators, we were treated to a portfolio review and personal feedback with Ellice Lee, Assistant Art Director at Random House, LeUyen Pham, Illustratess Extraordinaire, and Brett Duquette of Sterling books. There was also a Best of Show for the portfolios, in which my work was awarded runner up to the very deserving Kris McLeod who was awarded top honors.

The other notable speakers at the conference were:

Lin Oliver, Author and SCBWI Executive Director
Andrea Tompa, Editor, Candlewick Press
Jenna Pocius, Associate Editor, Abrams Books
Kendra Marcus and Minju Chang, Literary Agents, Bookstop Literary Agency
Mandy Hubbard, Associate Literary Agent, D4EO literary Agency
Linda Joy Singleton, Author
The YA Muses: Katy Longshore, Talia Vance, Bret Ballou, Donna Cooner, Veronica Rossi
YA Authors and Sacramento marketing experts Bitsy Kemper and Nicole Shannon Smith

The Main Conference Area

I could only manage to take just this one picture, as the rest of the time I was totally engrossed in being there. But, enough of the recap, let’s get on to some great ideas!

The 12 Incendiary Ideas

In No Particular Order

1. “Follow Your Weird”

When SCBWI co-founder Lin Oliver busted out with this one, I had a belly full of jelly laughs. It really put me in mind of some of my other heros like Wavy Gravy who was quoting Hunter S. Thomson when he said, “When the going get’s weird the weird get pro.” I was overjoyed to hear this, yes, weird is good, your weird is your uniqueness. Keep it up.

2. The Contact Window

One of the valuable aspects of being an SCBWI membership and attending a conference like this is that there’s a window of time directly after the conference where editors and art directors are open to being contacted. This is really great news, especially for folks like me who’re still on that precarious cusp of entering into the world of children’s publishing.

3. Lifting the Veil of Mystery

Removing the veil of mystery that surround the publishing process. We learned about the collaborative nature of the editing and art departments. At one point, I asked the question about who to contact, the editor or the art director, because I’d heard about the shift in power from one to the other, but was pleasenetly surpised to hear about the collaborative nature of the relationship between the editors and the art directors.

4. Cause A Stir

This one is sort of a re-iteration that most of us have heard before, but it’s always nice to bring it back up and to discuss the importance of an emotional connection to one’s work. During the Editor/Art Director Roundtable, each of the presenters in the own way made it a point to say this. Make the viewer or reader feel something is vital, and this of course stems from our own personal passion for the work.

5. Create a Sketch Portfolio

This little gem of an idea came from LeUyen Pham, and she brought up a good point that sketches are, by their very nature, “sketchy”, that is to say that they’re not finished pieces. As a result there’s a possibility to enter into a different type of dialogue with people about the work.

6. The Dry Spell Fund

This is some pretty solid financial advice about setting aside enough money in the bank just in case the bottom drops out. File this tip under Financial Brass Tacks.

7. Your Portfolio is a Book

When I heard this idea, I was dumbstruck. Well, of course it is! By arranging your portfolio in a way where you are conscientiously using eye-flow to arrange your work, the viewer can more easily imagine your work in a book. One of the biggest key elements to being able to do this is consistency of work.

8. Drawing Is Valuable

This was like a cool breeze on a summers day to my mind. I love that the presenters made a point of saying that draftsmanship is still a valuable skill,and is one of the foundational building blocks that an Art Director looks at in a a portfolio.

9. Know thy self

This is evergreen advice that can’t be emphasized enough. There is a clear line of connections leading from your own intimate understanding who you are and why you do what you do, to the work that you create. The stronger those connections are, I believe, the more the work will resonate with others.

10. Be on time. Period end of story.

If the unthinkable happens and you aren’t able to deliver the work within the schedule, be honest, flexible, and communicate clearly with your client. There are a lot of machinations that go on for each and every book that is in production, and they need to know if something is amiss. These folks are depending on you, sticking their necks out for you, so don’t put them into difficult postion!

11. “Even the stroke of a paintbrush is an assistnat to the eye-flow.”

Composition and Eye-flow are some primary narrative story telling devices. However, composition and eye-flow can only suggest where you want you viewers eyes to go, at that point it’s up to you to render the emotion.

12. Rule #1: Every Rule is meant to be broken, providing that it is broken smartly!

I call this the Laverne and Shirley Law.

We're gonna make our dreams come true!

These are just a dozen of the great ideas and comments that really made a dent in my psyche. Some are reiterations of things I’ve heard before and some are new, but they’re all really inspirational.

Personally, I left the conference feeling that I was given some solid advice on how to help tweak my work just that little bit further, and to help take it up to the next level and get it published. There was a lot of talent in the room and not a lot of ego; the overall vibe of the place was overwhelmingly positive and supportive. Lin Oliver at a few points in her talk referred to the SCBWI as a tribe, and I think that’s about right. It really felt like I’d found my people.

I’m excited and energized to get back to the drawing board and to start working on my next piece

Stay Tuned!

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Drawing to a Beautiful Conclusion

Written on April 12, 2012 in *Client Work, design, Painting, Process

A brief note before we begin: This is the second of a two part blog post about the creation and completion of an illustration and design project that I recently completed with my Uncle; a musician and songwriter. If you haven’t already read the previous post, I recommend that you check it out first, then come back to this one so that you’ll get a better sense of continuity.

Summary: In the previous post I talked about the beginnings and the initial thoughts and concepts behind this illustration. We left off in that post at the first round of thumbnails. This post will follow up by talking about revisions, rough comps, and the resulting phases of this process, ending with the exciting final product!

Moving On to the Roughs:

Understandably after sending off thumbnails of dancing birds, the project concept came back to what was originally what my Uncle had requested; something a more realistic and human based. I think it’s worth openly stating that ultimately any project is about me providing an image that speaks to the clients needs, and is not all about self gratification. I will just have to wait for another occasion to paint dancing birds. Happily I went back to the drawing board and began work anew, and came up with some dancers that were more in line with what the client was envisioning. Here I was working with a little reference from the movie “Heaven’s Gate.”

The Final Drawing

A note on process here; it is at this time that I started to adopt this way of sketching on regular old paper, and just adding pieces at the drawing develops. I find that this way of working really allows me to let go and to not be so precious with the drawings because they’re just on typing paper or whatever.

After the approval of this sketch, I worked up some very rough color sketches. For reference and inspiration, I was looking a lot at the watercolors of J.M.W. Turner. In an effort to connect and communicate the tonal qualities that I originally responded to, I began delving into the abstract color fields in his paintings.

Design Elements:

As the drawing and overall illustration began to take shape, I also need to start considering the overall design of the CD packaging. Here again, I wanted to stay on point with the qualities that had originally stood out to me: delicate, relaxed rolling, lyrical, and warm. Elements such as the type face, and the framing of the image needed to reflect these ideas.

Initially, I thought I wanted to go with this wood grained border around the image. I thought it gave a really good sense of the type of music that it was representing, but of course… in the end everything changes.

Project Wrap-Up:

After many weeks of work, the painting began to take shape and all the elements began to come together. During the process of painting the final image, I really enjoyed getting out my big brushes and laying in wash after wash of colors for the background. It’s not often enough that I allow myself the opportunity to just slosh color washes around on the page, after this experience however, I may allow myself more chances to do just that. I feel that the large washes really give a nice atmosphere to the piece.

"The Beverly Waltz" 18x18" watercolor

To wrap up the whole project, I began to put this painting together with the initial designs, and after conversations with my Uncle, the final design began to emerge. It was at this point that I was glad that I’d left a fair amount of white-space to put the type in. Though I kept the original typeface, I integrated the woodgrain border into the actual type it’s self; sort of like the inlay that one might find in a guitar neck.

The Final Cover Design

The Final Insert Design

Isolating part of the painting for the insert was fun too. I spend so much of my time with my nose about 6 inches away from the paper, that it’s pretty gratifying to show off a smaller more intimate selection from the painting. Also, the flow of the dress was another of the key elements that my Uncle tuned in to early on in the process, so it was nice to highlight it a bit.

The Final Design for the Back of the CD Case

In developing the back of the case, I happened to have a picture of my Uncle playing guitar at our wedding. With some layering in Photoshop, I was able to bring the swashes of color into the picture to help it cohere with the rest of the design. With those final elements in place, it was time to coordinate with the printer, and to send the files off.

Presto-bango-bongo!, after a few short weeks of waiting, the final product arrived on my doorstep!

The Final Product!

Conclusion:

I’m glad that you took some extra time with me reading this set of posts. This project is one of those times when there’s a real harmony between art and family. I will also say that if you’d like to order a copy of the CD, please drop me a line through the contact page, and I will put you in contact with Ed. As this is really a family affair, the album isn’t available for download, it’s just simple CD’s. And I’ll add to that, it’s a pretty good one to have too! Get yours today!

As ever, I respond well to enthusiasm. If you liked this, please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. I’m also interested in continuing a dialoge with you, did you liked this step by step granular view of the process? Did you like this two part format? Let me know by posting below. The last thing, sign up for my new news letter, the Bowes Art Gazette with the sign-up form at the right of this post.

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Waltzing Into The New Year

Written on March 29, 2012 in *Client Work, design, Drawing, Process, Watercolor

A brief note from the author:

I am going to try something new with this blog post. I am going to be posting this process in a short two post series.

In the past I’ve set out writing some pretty lengthy posts that explore each minuscule detail of a project. In part this is because I love the process of illustration and all the myriad of minutia that goes into a piece, and I like to share that with you. My hope is that this may even help you to take a deeper look at not just my work, but any drawing or painting that catches your fancy.

Why start now? Well, this particular project is pretty near and dear to me, and so I want to spend a little extra time writing about it. This will, I hope encourage you to read through most of my rhapsodic thoughts that went into creating this illustration and design. So, let’s begin.

Summary: I don’t believe that anyone get’s anywhere without help from the people around them. It is through this network of mutual support that beautiful things can emerge. This is the tale of just such a project.

It’s Been a Long Time Coming

For sometime now, my Uncle Ed has been trying to hire me to do a painting for him, and it never seemed to work out until now. In the later part of 2011, Uncle Ed began to put together a collection of his own original songs for a CD project that he was working on. Some of the songs had been percolating for quite some time, while others were a bit more off-the-cuff. It was a perfect moment for us to work together, and to both do what we love to do.

A bit of backstory here, even as a very small boy, I can remember my Uncle playing his guitar in my Grandparents home. He played a wide range of music, ranging from Classical to Bluegrass. Our whole family has been pretty well steeped in Bluegrass for a long time. His musical journey didn’t stop there, he moved on to other types of music that fascinated him: Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Cowboy songs, and more recently the sweeter side of Jazz Guitar.

His CD, The Beverly Waltz, shows off many of his influences from the first notes picked out on his banjo in the opening song entitled “Going Down to Upperville”, to lyrical and romantically slow waltz of the title track “The Beverly Waltz.” As the music rolls on one can easily imagine warm evenings on a back porch watching the evening sunset as the world rolls by. There’s a wonderful sincerity to each of the tracks. So, as I embarked to create an image that might begin to encapsulate some of the energy and emotion that his music evoked, I began where illustrators always begin; thumbnails. Lots and lots of thumbnails.

Where to Begin?

To start with, I like to give a lot of thought to the concept and the overall design of a project, and these usually come out in the thumbnails. In this particular case I started with listening to an early version of the CD and tried to match that up with the original ideas that my Uncle had presented me with. While I was listening to the music, there were some tonal qualities that stood out to me: delicate, relaxed rolling, lyrical, and warm. I knew that I wanted t the final piece to embody those feelings. Then, while I was listening to the music with my headphones, I could also hear the birds outside. It occurred to me how nicely their gentle chirps and warbles blended into the music, and so ideas about birds, or birdsongs, or The Bluebird of Happiness started show up in the sketches. In the end I took some of my sketches and started putting birds in them.

A portion of a sketch page

The first ideas had a bird band playing to some bird dancers

Dancing Birds

The dancing birds being serenaded

I suspected that this more fantastic solution would be a lot different than what he originally had in mind. So I did some research and found some historic precedence for these kinds of images, I found this old cartoon and liked the overall look and feel of the image, but wanted to make mine much more earnest in character and not so goofy. In the back of my mind I was also thinking of some delightful watercolors by Kristin Kwan which I’d spotted on IllustrationMundo awhile back.

La Lutte Artistique / Quadrille by Jules Worms, 1832-1924

I also dashed off a quick watercolor to begin to give a sense of the direction that I wanted to head.

Uncle Ed as a Bluebird

By the first round of roughs I felt that I’d found something quite unique, albeit a bit more fantastic in nature than I suspected that he wanted for his CD. So, I put this all together and sent it off.

What’s Next?

This is where I will pause the post for now, tune in next week when we’ll move onto the roughs, color roughs, initial graphic design solutions, and then we’ll finish up with the final painting and design for this project.

As always, I respond well to enthusiasm, so feel free to +1, share, and leave a comment below. Let me know if you like this idea of a two part blog post. I’d love to hear what you think of the first round of images such as they are. Also, please note that I’m starting a Studio Bowes Art Gazette, the sign-up form is in the right hand column. Sign up and get regular updates and more in depth news and process.

Until next time!

PS: The second and final blog post on this project is up! Check it out here: Drawing To A Beautiful Conclusion

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The Shadow Over My Drawingboard

Written on February 20, 2012 in Monster Monday, Watercolor

Having gorged myself by listening to the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast for what seemed like interminable aeons, I fell into a deep hypnotic stupor. I cannot claim to remember the dreams that plagued my feverish mind, I can only say that I had the vaguest memories of men with bulbous eyes that seemed to smell of fish. When I did finally awake, I did so with a bolt hysterical laughter. As the mania slowly passed over me, I became aware of a thing singular peculiarity on my drawing board. There before me was a smallish scrap of paper measuring no more than four and a half inches wide by six and a half inches tall; from whence it came I hesitate to guess, but there wrought on page was a watercolor sketch, a portrait of a personage that seemed oddly dapper, yet hideous in features. Perhaps this might have driven any person who was in full control of their mental faculties insane, but luckily being an artist I had more than a touch of lunacy which had in some singular way braced my mind for the thing that lay before me.

I present for your consideration… The Mayor Of Innsmouth.

Old Mayor Whateley of Innsmouth

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What Do You Get When You Cross A Sports Store And An Art Show?

Written on February 7, 2012 in Art Auction, Marketing and Promotion, Painting, Pencil, Real Life Adventures of an Illustrator, Watercolor

The show opened on Friday February 3rd, and will run through the end of the month. One of the things that I love about living in this town is it’s broad diversity, and this show definitely reflected that both in the work, and in the crowd who showed up.

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Eating the Hands of My Heros (just a little bit!)

Written on January 25, 2012 in Fantasy, Marketing and Promotion, Monster Monday, Sketchbook, Watercolor

“Eating the Hands of My Heros.” Zelda Devon, of Teetering Bulb, once suggested this to me as a way learning what has been successful in the illustration works that I enjoy, and as a way to grow my own work. It’s good advice, and it’s something that has been bouncing around in the back of mind for quite some time.

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