Still No Quilt Update
I haven’t done a single quilt-related thing since last time. Once I get sidetracked from something, it can be a challenge to get back into it again, but sooner or later…
Quilt Doodle
I guess this is the closest thing to a quilt update I have for you, this time. One of the items on my list of “things do doodle” is “quilts”. I thought a flat, two-dimensional sketch of a quilt block (or a set of blocks) might be something fun—but also simple and relaxing—to doodle and then paint. I had just one or two more pages on this old block of watercolor paper, and I wanted to just do something with it, but (as usual) had nothing particular in mind, so I decided to use the quilt idea.
However. I was in such a lazy mood that I didn’t want to look up quilt blocks, so I just doodled them at random from my head. I didn’t worry about lines being perfectly straight—didn’t think too much about balance or symmetry—essentially just doodled until the page was full.
And when it was done and the ink was all dry, I didn’t spend much time thinking about which colors to use and where. Just settled on a rough palette (red-orange, yellow, pink, purple) and started painting.
The wibbly-wobbly lines aren’t my favorite. I think they really probably look better if they’re either all straighter than this or all obviously intentionally “off”. Here, we have some that are mostly straight and some that are anything but.
The whole thing falls into the “eh” category for me, but it was something relaxing to do at the end of a day, and I think I learned from the process. If/when I do something with “quilts” as a theme again, having done this first might make the next version better, or at least more enjoyable.
Return of the Pumpkins
After starting with jack-o’-lanterns in July (I think), I’ve taken a bit of a break from pumpkins, lately. I may have been just all pumpkined out after too much, too soon—but I think I’m ready for more again, now.
After that neon-bright chaos with the crayons/wax pastels last time (the page of blobby trees and a house?), I wanted to do something a little more restrained, so I doodled a page of pumpkins/gourds using water-soluble crayon and whatever else felt right. (Maybe some non-water-soluble crayons? I can’t recall.) I added some color pencil on top, after it dried.
Here it was at that point:
After that, I wasn’t sure if I should leave it there, add shadows to each pumpkin, or what. In the end, I went for a quick watercolor background in a soft autumnal blue-grey, kept intentionally “splotchy” (or whatever word would describe this technique, where you don’t try to make it all a perfect, even wash of color).
I know this probably looks very childish, but I actually kind of like the style. I definitely enjoyed the process, and the colors make me happy.
Owl Doodles
I think this next page was suggested by someone else’s (better, more expressive) doodles of owls, seen in a book I’m reading.
I doodled this page in Platinum Pigment Ink in “Sepia”, using the Q1/Little Fat Man pen. Later, I added watercolor (and a couple of tiny dots of white marker pen for the eyes of one of the owls, because I’d neglected to leave catchlights, and he looked wrong without them.)
I looked up some references online, but didn’t try to copy exactly, but rather to put my own spin on the doodles.
Not a favorite, but you can’t get better without trying new things! I do like it more after adding the color, which usually seems to hold true. If you just keep working on things, you generally find that they’re not as bad as you originally thought.
More Owls!
I thought it might be nice to simplify things by doodling very small owls, so I filled a sketchbook page with watercolor rectangles, let it dry, and filled each one with a very small owl doodle.
I considered leaving it like that, but then decided to add more color. For the top row, I tried using watercolor markers, but I found they didn’t want to “disperse” with added water as much as I’d hoped. It was looking more like regular marker—not my favorite style—so I switched to traditional watercolor and brush for the rest. I just used whatever was leftover on my ceramic palette, which was mostly brown, green, yellow ochre, and a little bright orange.
Better before or after? I’m not sure! Painting them was fun, at least.
This still isn’t one of my favorite subjects to doodle, but there are a couple of things here that might be interesting to return to.
(Side note: All the black ink used in pages featured in this blog post is the Platinum Carbon Black. It does seem to have superior waterproofness over the Noodler’s Bulletproof Black, though it also has more of a sheen/reflectivity even after drying. I don’t love that, but I gather that it’s just part of pigment inks. It’s not usually an issue.)
Pumpkin Patch, Black Cats
I’ll leave you for today with another page of pumpkin doodles—but this time with added black cats.
A lot of times, I don’t know exactly where I’m going with a doodle until it’s well underway, but I think I knew early on with this one that I wanted to add black cats amongst the pumpkins, so I intentionally left some bigger spaces for them to go.
I started with loose watercolor pumpkin shapes in blue and indigo. After that dried, I added the line details in black pen (Duke 600 fude nib fountain pen). Finally, I let the cats into the patch. ;o)
Originally, I planned to leave the whites of their eyes as bare paper, but that was proving tricky (the shapes felt wrong), so I ended up just inking the whole cat shape in black, then going back with a white acrylic marker to add eyes and other facial features. Where needed, I tidied up with a little more black ink.
We’re finally getting some precipitation again this week, after a long dry spell. I could do without the lightning (which to be fair hasn’t been bad so far), but I’ve missed the rain! The indigo pumpkins remind me of rainclouds…
