The Owly Illustrations

Recently, my wife worked on a 12-pager concept about child's care. To give it a neat touch, she asked me to do some illustrations. The theme, or how she called her hypothetical group of Under-Three-Year-Olds, was 'The Owl-Nest'. The painting below is the finished front cover. It was done with watercolor pencils and wet brushes.

Here are the very first sketches from imagination with the help of some internet pictures of owls and their babies, to close in on their basic structure. See... even at this early stage of the process, some of them made it into the final picture.

This is the tight comprehensive pencil drawing I used for tracing the composition right onto the watercolor paper (you might still see the marks). A tight comprehensive is a detailed sketch which will be used as the ultimate reference for the final painting. Of course, since I handle my wife's request just like a job, she had to approve before diving into the full color finish.

I knew, there would not be enough time to do more colored owls. So... as it goes, the last evening before putting the whole concept together, ready to be submitted, I quickly doodled a couple of stand-alones with a brush pen to fill in some blanks.

'The Beagle' in Gouache

Gouache is such a versatile medium to paint with. It was my first try and I am amazed by the freedom it gives you. This is a painting of Darwin's ship 'The Beagle'. 1831, it took him on a 5 year long journey which triggered his most important work 'On the origin of species'. Source was a black & white internet photo of a faithful replica. I intentionally did not do any color research of ocean and ship, but am thankful for the help of an art instructor to push me in the right direction. There was not much time to finish, but, on the other hand, I cannot say I rushed it, since I ended up spending about an hour on one wave,... which was cut off, of course.

I do not have much practice with color and thought, gouache would be perfect to start with. Because it is a water-soluble medium, you can do wet washes as in the sky. And it is also no problem, this time contrary to watercolor, to set highlights with whites or working over parts you don't like.

First Live-Drawing-Session... Ever!

A bit hidden in the internet and else not well known, the drawing club I visited yesterday evening seemed a bit like a secret society. They all know one another very well from the art academy way back... greeting hugs & kisses, they pursue a decades long tradition. Initiated by their former art teacher, they regularly get together to draw from live models. I never would have known this is happening just right around my corner, if it was not for my wife. Probably disguised as a local, small art school by day, it just took a little slip of comment from the instructor whiles chatting.

Actually, this small group of artists turned out to be a very friendly and welcoming bunch and we had a great evening drawing, painting & drinking wine. The model was a young, outstandingly well build guy. He posed, and this was the only thing I was not prepared for, in intervals of 10-15 minutes. Going bold with quick lines and shading was an exercise I am very much in need of, I realized. But there are sessions coming up, which I am looking forward to attending, since drawing from live models seems to be a rare opportunity in this town.

On that matter, you might want to check out this post: DR. SKETCHY’S ANTI ART SCHOOL