It creates a sketch plane on the surface of the body. You can hide the body, but the sketch plane still remains. You can also take and move that plane forward or backward as required. In my mind, it saves a step or two.
@welshsteve is correct. I had modified a sketch, created a body from it, carried out various chamfers that I wanted incorporated into a sketch before proceeding further. Obviously you have to be pretty sure that they are exactly as you want them before doing such a thing.
I paint oils over acrylic. I first sketch the painting in shades of gray acrylic. I usually confine myself to 8 shades. Then I will paint all the features of the painting in complimentary tones using acrylic. Then I do the oils over the complimentary acrylics. I never lay a pencil to a canvas.
Heat -Bodied Oil is the vehicle of all Hand Mulled Paint . A very little Stand Oil is needed as medium or to oil out .
Medium is used only in the last coat/s if needed at all.
In the good company of Old and New Masters.
Why not do your drawing as usual, then go over your lines with thinned paint on a liner brush? That would be a good transition from what you are now doing. Eventually, you may feel comfortable enough with the brush to just use it and skip the pencil.
i begin with a detailed values painting (grisaille) using a mixture of burnt siena and a little burnt umber. after mixing the color, i mix 10 parts tups to 2 parts linseed oil, making a wash with the mixed color. i coat the entire support with a middle value of this wash mixture using either soft cloth or paper towels. even covering is important.
though grisaille refers to gray, this one is not. . .no matter, the concept, though detailed, allows one to very accurately depict the value levels, placing them as accurately as possible before using the color. oftentimes, in working the piece, the grisaille is allowed to show through the color and/or even be incorporated into the final piece.
I recently started keeping my iron oxide and lead white turps in a container separate from all my other paint slop. I filter it through coffee filters, and add a whack of calcium carbonate, then grind it into a very lean linseed oil.
I recomend making your own transfer paper using actual oil paint. Pick the color you want and apply it thinly and evenly to the back of a drawing or copy. Tape it into place and trace the lines with a hard pencil(5H) or ball point pen. The paint lines can be diffused or wiped off as needed. This is my method. I may have invented it, because I have never seen anyone else use it. Works perfectly.
lol
Belive this or not i actually almost always use pencil for my underpainting and yes there is a way that it dosnt show through i just simply draw whatever i am going to paint on the canvas then i get a can of spray varnish let it dry and go to work simple as that:D
I agree with Artman. When I first started taking lessons in oils 30+ years ago, my teacher taught me to use a graphite pencil to sketch on the canvas. After getting the form down to whatever degree I felt comfortable with, we sprayed the canvas with a clear Krylon spray. I have paintings that are 30+ years old that do not have any ill effects from this.
There may be a better way of doing it today but that still works.
Jerry:D
i am with reye also graphite works just fine no problems,it would be a problem if you didnt use spray varnish though,belive it or not the spray on the canvas gives it a better surface to paint on i think.plus using pencil you wont have to use as much oils for your underpainting:D
That last point was me being a little bit flippant, however, full disclosure: I wanted to be one of those people who sketch with a fountain pen because it does look so much cooler! Especially if you have a fancy looking fountain pen. There we go, my superficiality is laid bare for you all to judge me!
Fineliners are also known as technical pens. They are available in a range of thicknesses, such as 005 (which is super fine), 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and so on. Usually, in sets of fineliners, the thickest pen will be 0.8, such as in this set of Microns I bought from Amazon. Microns are a popular brand but you can various other brands of fineliners in most art shops. Popular choices are Uni Pin, Staedtler, Copic and Faber-Castell. As long as the ink is waterproof then use whatever you can find!
I have tried all of the previously mentioned brands and liked them all except Faber-Castell. For some reason, I just do not find them nice to draw with. I was out sketching one day and it started to rain and my ink smudged everywhere, even though they are supposed to be waterproof. I have not had that experience with other brands.
I mainly use Pigma Microns or the Uni Pins. I have only recently tried and Copic and I really do like drawing with those too. They are slightly more expensive than the other brands I have mentioned, however, you can replace the nibs of the pens and also refill them. So, this could explain the slightly higher price tag.
Fineliners generally come with black ink but you can also buy them with sepia ink or grey ink too. I believe Uni Pins come in blue and red as well. I generally stick with black but I do have Faber-Castell pens with sepia ink.
Choosing a nib size can be quite difficult, especially if you have no frame of reference to make your decision. I bought my Lamy Safari with a medium nib because quite honestly at that point I had no idea there were other options. Over time I began to realise sketchers used other nib sizes. After a little investigation, I found I could simply just buy a different nib for my Lamy pen (and not a whole new pen) as changing nibs on the Lamy Safari is very easy. This is not the case with all fountain pens so best to research your specific pen.
It took a while but I found a nib at Cult Pens, a company in the UK (where I was living at the time). I bought an extra-fine (EF) nib based on the fact I thought my medium nib produced far too thick a line, and this is why I did not use it as much as I would have liked to sketch with. I was pleased with the EF nib, although the line was still thicker than I had expected! I wondered why this was.
There are other factors which affect the performance of a nib, such as the ink used, the paper and even the writer/sketcher themselves (like the angle you write at, the pressure you place on the pen and the speed you write at).
I will show you my exact sketching process in ink and watercolour. I have travelled around the world in the last 3 years and this is my go-to system of creating beautiful yet quirky illustrations to capture the magic of my discoveries.
We will work through 3 projects, step by step (pictured below), all of which are real-life examples of things I have sketched along my travels. I provide the photo references you can work from.
We will start by choosing a composition, laying in the initial pencil sketch, adding ink lines, layering watercolour and adding the final touches.
This and much more are included in my course, Sketch Your Adventures, click the button under the image to find out more!
Fude nibs are nibs that look bent or curved at the end. You can vary your line width by the angle you use the pen. Traditionally used for writing calligraphy, fude pens are great for sketching loosely with.
I have a Sailor Fude De Mannen, the green one with the nib bent at a 55-degree angle (the black version has a 40-degree angle nib). I bought it from Amazon but have since found them available at Cult Pens (UK) for those of you based in the UK.
The price of fountain pens can vary phenomenally. In the video below you see Peter Draws and fellow Youtube and pen enthusiast, David from Figboot on Pens, experiment with pens up to US$2000 in price.
You can pick up a fountain pen for very little money, and to be honest, this is a good place to start. Unlike some other tools, I think starting at a relatively cheap price point is not going to hold you back much. Fountain pens have a hardcore cult following. People can geek out about them and as such there are many blogs, forums and threads devoted to discussing the finer points of materials, craftsmanship, ink flows and optimal paper surfaces. To be honest, this does not float my boat so much. I just want a pent that works and feels nice to draw with (oh, and that looks cool of course).
A converter fits into a fountain pen just like a normal ink cartridge does. As it allows you to refill your pen directly from an ink bottle, it opens up a whole array of ink types and colours to sketch with.
A piston converter is the most common, and this is the type I use in my Lamy Safari and my Sailor Fude pen. Twisting the knob at the end of the converter moves a piston inside the barrel. Depending on which way you twist the know the piston will move up or down, creating a vacuum inside the barrel in order to draw ink into it.
A squeeze converter works by squeezing the air out of the barrel and then releasing it to draw ink up into it. I have actually not seen a pent that uses one of these converters, I think its an older style.
There is a huge range of bottled fountain pen ink to choose from. Cult Pens alone have 400 different colours and you can even mix your own colour. Despite what might be said by pen manufacturers, you can use any brand of ink in any fountain pen.
The most important thing for us as urban sketchers to note is that most fountain pen ink is not waterproof. This obviously presents an issue if we want to sketch and then paint with watercolour over the top.
Dye-based inks are the most common type of fountain pen ink but the least water-resistant. However, there is a sub-category of dye-based inks called bulletproof ink which is made to be water-resistant. Noodlers have bulletproof ink which I see many artists use in their fountain pens.
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