Wow it’s been a while since I’ve had time to write on here. So let’s sum up the first half of 2019…
Work was insane with a couple months of intense crunch that drained a lot of creative energy.. so that wasn’t so good.
I’ve been exploring art supplies and trying new things to help find out what works well for me. There’s been some surprises and some letdowns.
The Letdowns
- Alcohol ink markers, tried a few brands on different papers and they just don’t click for me. I see people doing amazing things with them, but I’m just not a fan of actually working with them
- Galkyid Lite, I was hoping to like this drying assistant, but compared to liquin I just found it to be quite frustrating. No matter what I did it turned tacky on the canvas before I was done and it’s started hardening inside the dropper bottle I put it into.
The Surprises
- Hammermill Laser printer paper, this has completely replaced my paper sketchbooks, I love the weight and smoothness of it, plus it holds inks really well.
- Colored Pencil leads for mechanical pencils, I’m not sure how I managed before. Being able to do the initial sketch in red and then draw over it with pencil or inks just really lets me be free with the initial sketch. Maybe it’s just a mental hurdle that I had to get over, but whatever it was, they’ve been a lifesaver.
- Tombow brush pens, I’m not normally an ink fan but these rubber tipped brush pens are amazing and really have replaced most of my Micro and Prismacolor liner pens
Next up for playing with, I’ve got a stack of oil primed Linen boards that I’m excited to try out. I’ve been fighting with the cheap canvas cotton texture and I’m hoping these will give me the combination of texture and control that I’m aiming for. If not then I’ll be priming more MDF boards which has a nice subtle texture to work on.
I also went back to Fantasy Art Workshop’s Illustration Intensive again this year and it was a great and intense week. There was a lot of struggle in getting the painting going this year and while I’m pretty happy with the end result, I feel like I learned more about how to work through setback after setback than I actually did about the process of creating a piece of art. Which in hindsight, was probably what I really needed to learn more and something I couldn’t have learned at home, since I’d just have chucked the piece in the crap pile and moved on.
