Contemplations in markup

My friend Amy made me discover René Gruau last week. I had seen some of his fashion illustrations and advertising work without knowing they were his. I love his style! His work reminds me of that which Toulouse Lautrec and Alfons Mucha did in their own time. I used the reverse side of my Copic Drawing Pen fountain pen for extra thin lines, Geranium Red ink Brush Writer from Kuretake, black ink Pentel Brushpen, and I smudged very little amounts of Light Grey ink for shading.

White cliffs by the sea. Gouache paint from the Holbein Artists tubes I got in a Sketchbox: I mixed Prussian blue, leaf green, yellow ochre and used some titanium white watercolor. I like it well enough but recognise it’s pretty awkward and not striking enough. Perhaps the tones aren’t pastel enough. And I am certain that the artbook paper isn’t thick enough (96g/m2 – 65 lb) for the watered down colours I used.

Another favourite! For “pure”, I wanted to draw a Maiko (apprentice geisha). This is from the 2005 movie with Zhang Ziyi “Memoirs of a Geisha” which tells the story of a 9 year-old girl sold by her poor family to a Kyoto geisha house, who in time becomes Sayuri, the beautiful and talented geisha, whose successful career is cut short by the outbreak of World War II. For this drawing I wasn’t too sure which medium to use. After doing the pencil outline in my artbook, I drew it again on a scrap of paper using a Derwent sepia line maker with a bit of black and the geranium red and light grey Brush Writers from Kuretake. It didn’t work. I chose gouache paint instead: yellow ochre, burnt sienna, ivory black from Holbein Artists, and some titanium white opaque watercolor. It took me 75 minutes (for a drawing that is only the size of my palm!) I love it!

This is a pencil drawing of Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, the Elven Queen from the movie Lord of the Rings. It took me over 2 hours (the drawing isn’t bigger than my palm). Portrait are really hard. Getting someone’s features is difficult for me. It barely looks like her but I couldn’t find what to change to make it so.

This is an alcohol markers drawing on tracing paper of Carl’s house from the movie “Up”, surrounded by towering buildings. I went way out of my comfort zone for this last day of Drawvember! I have 30 or so Winsor & Newton coloured Promarkers (a few of which I used here) and a dozen Brushmarkers of the same brand in various tones of warm and cold greys. I haven’t used them a lot because they require specific paper as alcohol ink bleeds a lot, and my artbook is of regular paper. I follow someone named Mutoni on Instagram and he uses them on tracing paper. It looks way easier when he does it! Today I learned that the ink does not penetrate in the paper. Therefore when I wanted to darken the tones or blend colours by adding layers, I discovered that the new layer somewhat overwrites the existing colour. So the tones aren’t at all like they are supposed to be because I didn’t have the specific colours I needed. The roof is supposed to be a mix of blue and dark emerald, for example. One thing turned out well however: I thought the ink might not dry very well and I didn’t want my fingers to smudge it once I was going to glue the sheet to my artbook page, so I was clever enough to draw on the back side of the paper and then flip it to apply think black lines and white. I spent a lot more time on this little piece than I anticipated. I don’t dislike the result, but I’m not enamoured with it.