Sketchbook - Red and Black

So I have been riding the Honolulu city bus a lot these past couple weeks for work. I have been working on a few sketches while on the bus.

I have been experimenting with this red ink in my fountain pen. At first, I thought it was far too light to be of any real use. I then had the great idea to go back in with black ink and the results are kind of neat.
I can really play with depth of field using the two color inks. With thick black lines, I can push certain things forward on the page.  By relying on the red ink, I can have things sink into the background. It reminds me of the technical drawings with red and blue pencils.

I really like the above drawing it was one of the first with the duel ink. The seat and the pole really push to the foreground in this.
  

 I like how much I played with the two color inks here. Its interesting to see the effects of the different color cross hatching.  

 

"Everyone is an explorer. 

How could you possibly live your life looking at a door and not open it?"

 ~ Robert D. Ballard

Odd Fellow Meeting - Tedmund

I had a meeting with the Odd Fellows of Hawaii, IOOF on the 4th. As always, I was drawing.

I did a pretty nice watercolor of one of the  members. I liked the pose I managed to capture. It got a little darker then I would have liked but it still looks great. 

"Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns 

in order to look at things in a different way."

~ Edward de Bono

Student - RP

This is a watercolor of one of the students I've worked with. He was a great case.

I like a lot of things about this painting. I like how I painted the flowers on his paper lei that he made. I like his hand. I like the shadows on his shirt and belly.

Little Mountain Book 7-18

This weekend I went camping at Ho'omaluhia Botanical Gardens. I had a good time, but as promised I had some time to do a few watercolors. I was on a roll and did 13 this weekend.  I should probably break this into 3 posts, but let's see if this will work.

Above was done Saturday morning. It is a view of Nuuanu Pali. There are still clouds caught on the mountain peak. I enjoy the detail in this one. It is a large amount of actual space to fit on such a tiny page.

OK, here is a zoom in and to the right of the last one. This is a view of the prominent rock cliff of the Pali with misty mountains in the background. I like how I rendered the mountain with the cloud on it.

 Here is another land locked view of the cliff folds of the Koolaus. I think it is a little less successful then the one in my previous trips 

This is the last one from Saturday morning. I think I managed to capture the feeling of really strong morning light hitting the mountains in this one. I am really happy with the rhythm I created in the folds of the mountains.
 

We went for a light walk around the park and I stopped at a Park bench during a break and did this one.  Looking at these paintings, after the fact, I can see the difference in the light from morning to the afternoon. I painted the shadows more crisply.  I also avoided yellow in the high lights, relying instead on the greens to cover tone changes.

It is kind of interesting to look at the changes in the next few, considering I only painted them a few hours after the ones from the morning. 

I ended up for most of the afternoon on a overlook that had a great 360 view of Kaneohe. This is Olomana and is to the left of the views of the Pali I did (The first two paintings of this post.)  Olomana  has a very neat look to it.

I particularly like the way I rendered the trees in the foreground. I was struggling with them for a bit but I like how they look here.
 

Another view of Nuuanu Pali. I really must have been drawn to them. as I did so many views of them. I think I really wanted to show the contrast of the two ridges with atmospheric perspective separating them. The mountains looks so crisp.   

I then shifted my view on the overlook to Kaneohe/Kailua instead of the Koolau Mountains. I like these two peaks. I think they are glorified hills, but I still like the way I painted them.

This was the last of the pictures I painted of the Koolau Saturday afternoon.It was also my last picture from that overlook. I really like how crisp everything looks.
  

This morning I woke up and painted three more pictures. It was rainy and there were clouds all over the Koolaus.I did this first painting from the same location as the first picture. I really like the blue/gray tone I was able to get in these.

This is of the Koolau ridge line as the clouds danced over them. I am really happy with how this came out.

I was worried it would not work. In watercolor, the white is the white of the page so it can be difficult to make white shapes look good because it represents not putting paint some where. It is one of those weird things with watercolor that so many little things can screw up.

This was the last of the paintings I did on this camping trip. I really wanted to capture the mist covered feel of the Nuuanu Pali. I like how this came out.