White Tiger

Nearly done! I think I just want to add a glaze or two of colour to the black scriveners ink of the background, blue or maybe green, and add a little more of the ink here or there.

Pencil grid, pencil & black biro line work.

Black biro line work with watercolor shading added.

With the black scriveners ink added.

I'm really surprised with how well the underwater parts turned out in the photo of the painting. For a split second I thought I'd uploaded the wrong image until I noticed the splodgy reflections in the background. When I look at the actual painting I can't help but see biro squiggles!

Playing with watercolour / watercolor triads.

Instead of doing any more work on the white tiger last night, I spent nearly the whole day doing this instead:

I went through my entire Daler Rowney [Aquafine ?] 12 half-pan pocket set, sorted them into some experimental triads [using the yellow-green as a yellow in some and the bluer-green as a blue, and the oranges as reds] to see what different colours I could make.

The whole process took me so much longer than I thought it would - literally all day - but it was worth it. It forced me to mix colours I wouldn't ordinarily think of mixing, not to mention use colours I don't normally like using. For example, I always thought of R2 [the fifth colour across the top of the first image, or the middle one below] as far too bright to be used for anything that wasn't going to be super bright. Rookie mistake! It actually makes a really nice peachy kind of colour when watered down. And I've had these watercolour paints how long?*

Silly Char; the clue is in the name.

So in doing an exercise like this, you learn so much about what your paints can do for you. Now I know how to get a pretty peach colour, a dark bluey grey, and which blues and reds/oranges/browns to mix to get different purples and greens and browns and greys. I also realised that the bluer green of the two I have [third from the right in the first image] can probably be used as a blue by itself in some pictures quite happily. See the last two columns in the first image - they feel almost fruity to me, sunny, warm, and maybe even Mediterranean. I can't be sure about that last bit though; I've never been to the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, the left-hand columns using the colder blue feel like they can be used to represent colder climates and northern areas quite easily.

Top and bottom of the left column: I can't not see a forest by a mountain.

One thing I haven't experimented with yet is the black colour in my set. I want to see how it reacts when mixed with each of the other colours in the set, and also what kind of feelings I can get out of it if I replace a colour in a triad with the black. I'd really like to try recreating some of the colour combinations I saw while watching 300 with my flatmates last night. But before I start on that, I really should finish the line work of my tiger!

* Years. Possibly a decade. I don't even know the names of any of my colours; I lost the little tint chart telling me their names a while ago. I'm sure it's lurking around in my stuff somewhere...

W H Smith: 5 Oil & Acrylic Painting Boards

A while ago I went out and bought a set of five 12x9inch white painting boards from the W H Smiths in Cardiff. Two of these I gave to friends to draw on to decorate the flat we've just moved into in Roath, while the rest I kept for myself to think of something to do with. Here's what I've done - excuse the quality of the photos, I took them using my phone camera. I'm thinking I might join the Canon club soon, but we'll see.

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A tracing of a belly dancer, lined with biro and metallic gel pens, the background and floor coloured in with watercolour, spattered lightly with orange paint. She's still there on my desk, standing in the lamplight while it's on. I still need to finish reading that copy of House of Leaves.

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A self portrait; pictured resting on an empty Lucky beer bottle I acquired from the Prince of Wales in Cardiff during a little post-gym pint night a year or two ago, she's now stuck to my bedroom door - on the living room side. For this image I used a photo of myself and added grid lines to assist me in getting the proportions right. Drawn in pencil first, then with biro outlines, added some metallic gel pen and then painted in the hair with scriveners ink that I bought from a museum somewhere.

The symbols at the top of the image show my "Four Pillars of Destiny" based on my date of birth, while the clock pendant is the same one I'm currently wearing. I bought the necklace at a car boot sale in Saundersfoot with my mum, for the low low price of 50p! It was originally £1, but I got to have it for 50p because the clock itself didn't work. It now hangs around my neck set to the time I was born - ten to noon. You know, just in case I ever forget...

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A white tiger, again from a photo [this one found via the wonders of the internet] using grid lines to help me get the proportions and details right. My flatmate says using grid lines is cheating, but he's a monkey. This one is a work in progress, using pencil and black biro, and I will possibly use more scriveners ink to fill in the background of dark water. I was intending to finish it today but it will probably be done by tomorrow instead.