Travel Sketches - Kaua'i

Sketchbooks, pens, and paints came out with me on a trip to Kaua'i last week. In between swatting mosquitoes who decided that I was a sitting duck when painting (sitting tasty duck at that), I managed to do a few drawings and paintings while out and about.

Out at the beach while some clouds gather at the peak of the nearby mountain. Showers were on and off, but it was never very cold even when raining.

Even with mosquito repellant, they found me too tasty to resist. The price of this lower right sketch was 3 bites. 

Managed to find a spot up on a ridge where the windiness kept most of the bugs away. Only a few lone dragonflies winged about. Huge ones, 4 inches long.

Experimented with a quick brush pen sketch too.

Wren and the Howlers

Wren and the Howlers

Size: 13x4 inches

Medium: Mixed (watercolor, ballpoint pen, india ink, gesso, pencil, the kitchen sink)

Prints, closeup detail images, and original painting available -here-

Wren woke.

It was dark outside, the middle of the night. But it was hardly quiet as such an hour should have been. The Howlers were out there in the darkness, separated from her only by thin rattling glass panes, and even thinner curtains. The filmy material trembled, even though no air passed through the tightly shut windows.

Wren shoved the curtains aside, pressed her nose up against the glass. It was cold, and made her scrunch up her face and almost sneeze. Beads of moisture condensed from her breath instantly, clouding her view. She settled back slightly, wiped the palm of one hand across the icy glass, then the now cold and wet palm across her nightgown.

“Yowly rowly Howlers,” she whispered quietly.

They heard her even so. Through the glass. A particularly naughty one hurled a dry branch against the panes, and the sudden SMACK of sound made her jump a bit.

“Go to bed,” she whispered fiercely.

Maybe they didn’t hear her.

Or maybe they just pretended not to hear her. They were like that.

The Howlers howled louder, and swirled the dry leaves she had spent all afternoon raking into a mad Autumn-colored confetti.

 * * *

Some in progress stages.

Early on, after splattering ink and medium and letting it dry. And then forgetting about it for several months in my drawers.  Pulled it out and started picking out fox-spirit-creatures.

Further development, using ballpoint pen, and white gel pen to push shadows and pull out highlights. 

Afterwards, glazed with light washes of watercolors, just to tint areas.

Added the girl towards the end on impulse.  Needed something to anchor all the amorphousness, and a touch of color. The puppy looks like my brother's border-collie-mix. :)

Fox Spirits

I had this particularly nifty piece of textured/painted board that I had prepared back in May when I was experimenting. It's been sitting in a pile of similar prepped pieces, waiting for me to figure out what image was hiding in it. Loved the swirls and patterns that the ink made as it dried on this piece so I didn't want to obliterate it behind too much thought!  Here's what emerged.

Fox Spirits

Size: 4x8 inches

Medium: ink, watercolor, gel pen, ballpoint pen.

For detail closeups, original painting ($300.00), and prints ($16.95), -click here-

Ships Passing in the Night

 Ships Passing in the Night

Size: 11x23 inches

Medium: Watercolors

Detail closeups, Original painting ($1500.00) and Prints ($16.95 & $26.50) -available here-

Lately, I've been fascinated by painting skies defined by inversion of negative space....

* * *

This was was sitting in the sketchbook as a thumbnail for a long time. Forgot about it, and then came across it the other day when I was flipping through wondering what to paint next.

 Fleshed out the dragon sketch.

 Digital composite of the thumbnail and the more detailed elements of the ship and the dragon. At this point I had the idea to turn the ship into a dragon-ship so that the juxtaposition to the dragon is all the more striking.

 Refined finalized sketch on the painting surface.

 Photoshopped color rough to use as a guideline when I started painting.

 In-progress scan. At this point, I compared it to the color rough and found that the water was much lighter than I wanted it to be. Sometimes it's hard to tell, comparing something on a lighted monitor, to the actual page. The light from the screen throws off your judgment of color and contrast, so it helps to see them both on the screen side by side instead, for a true comparison.

So, after that I went back and sprayed workable fixative on the bottom half of the painting and glazed some more greens and yellows and purples over the water to darken that whole area.

Cobwebs

 Cobwebs

10x14 inches

Pencil 

Prints($16.95) and original drawing ($350.00) -available here-

The profusion of spiders in my garden at this time of year have scuttled into my art again. I found this leaf on my tomato plant the other day:

The Honeybee was abuzzling bumbling
Out among the eaves
When she came across the Spider
Lurking in between the leaves.

“Come and visit,” urged the Spider.
“I’ve laid the best china out
   (The plates with dainty yellow flowers)
You’ve worked so hard this summer’s day,
You have a thirst, no doubt!”

The Honeybee abuzzled bumbled
Through the sappy bower,
And grew quite heavy with her load
Of pollen from the flowers.

“Come inside,” the Spider crooned,
“I’ve just made up the nest.
It’s downy soft, a lovely place
To settle down and rest.”

And so the Honeybee was lured
By words and sweetened sap
To still her buzzling wings a spell
And lay down for a nap.

Luminous

 

Luminous

Medium: Watercolors

Size:18x11 inches

Prints (8.5x11@$16.95 and 11x17@26.50), original painting ($1500.00), and detail closeups -available here-

Plunging through the woods like a white shadow.

* * *

Some of the in progress shots:

Here's what the thumbnail looks like. Not much, but it gets the ideas down from my brain. I actually scribbled this a while back, and had been meaning to elaborate on it for some time. This is what sketchbooks are great for! Anytime you have even the inkling of an idea, take a minute and scribble something, and then when a dry spell comes along, a flip through the sketchbook provides a wealth of ideas waiting to be explored.

From that rough scribble of a concept, I developed it into this finalized sketch.

 And then in photoshop I messed around to determine a color scheme. Initially I started out with the green tones, but then shifted it to the blue for a more dream-like quality. I had to sit on the colors for a day though before coming to an actual decision, as those of you who saw my post of facebook noticed!

 

Started painting. Started with the background.

 Moved onto the figure.

 And then further development of the ripples in the water.

And finally the fish and the leaves.

...to the finished piece.

Be sure to visit Shdowscapes to see the full size piece and closeup views! -available here-

Avalon

Avalon

Medium: Watercolors, India Ink

Size: 16x22

Prints ($16.96 & $26.50), Original painting ($1650.00), and closeup detail views available -here-

The Isle of Apples. Mythical island in the mists. The final resting place of King Arthur.

The name of Avalon invokes magic and mystery. 

* * *

I began with some scribbled thumbnails. The structures of the buildings, I wanted to be reminiscent of the ruins that can be found today in Glastonbury. 

 The final shape of the composition at first was a very centered piece.

 But I found that to be a bit dull, and on a whim, pushed things over to one side (in photoshop) a few inches, and shifting the boat a little bit to fit that new alignment. That turned out to be just what was needed.

 The final pencil sketch that was ready for painting:

  The initial colors I had in mind were for a ghostly night scene, with the tree glowing in the darkness. I tried to be lazy and just use photoshop brushes to sketch in the colors. But it really looks nothing like actual watercolors, and so it's hard to get a good feel for how the colors will actually work out when using the paint.

So, reluctantly I went through my much lengthier color roughing process, that involves cutting and pasting large areas of color and texture from my collection of other scanned paintings, and then tweaking color balance and contrasts in photoshop. This gives a MUCH better approximation of what a finished piece could look like, and gives me a basis to decide colors and values. 

Using that above color rough as a guide, I  started painting.

The final results: