Wet in wet and no lines

There is no doubt that the impact of my trip to Singapore over Xmas/New Year has been huge on  my art. I am working wetter and have been weaned off my inklines... but this sketch is almost one step further. I did do a few very basic setup lines in a lavender pencil but then just went for it with my paint. I was painting the lines. I could have done this entire sketch without any lines (oh! just ignore the fact that I used a watercolour pencil for the fence)

I am currently using a Stillman & Birn Beta book - it is very very nice  thick watercolour paper but the sizing on the paper means that the paint sits on the surface of the paper longer than I am used it. Combined with the fact that I was working quite wet this afternoon meant that I was really working wet in wet. I did have a momentary thought early on that I should slow down and wait for hte paint to dry,  but I quickly abandoned that idea...deciding instead to go with the flow (literally!) I was sitting in my car, half way home from the gym and not wanting to get caught in the traffic....there is always many reasons that I give myself for going fast!

What is really interesting about this exercise is how the hard edges of the building have still been expressed despite the bleeds left right and centre.I am really enjoying breaking away from my previous addiction to lines. At heart I am an architect, so that obsession will never go away.... but it is so much fun to explore new stuff!

More interior versions....

I did three more versions of that little scene from Saturday... a more careful watercolour, watercolour without ink lines and watercolour pencils (this is what I used at work before I got into markers - I am just working on bond paper and using water sparingly...it buckles a little)
If you haven't noticed, I like doing the same subject multiple times...

Some people were having problems seeing the images on this blog and for other people it was fine...curious!... let me know if you can't see all three on this post.

If you couldn't see the images on the previous post- check them out over at Liz and Borromini here

Watercolour vs Marker

Sketching a few interiors today  and thought I would do a comparison between watercolour and markers. Both were done in a similar time frame - ie. a rapid rate. I scanned the base line drawing of the watercolour and then printed it out for the marker version (on bond paper)
I use my copic markers in the same manner I use my brush - very similar gesture and movements...but instead of mixing different colours I am madly scrambling to find the new colour, put on the lid of the colour just used and then open the right end of the the new colour (I am using the wedge end on this sketch)

Friday NIght Baroque with dissolving lines

As I am in such an inkless mood, I thought I would try a favourite Baroque facade to draw... I can't even think of the name of it but it is in Rome, near the Pantheon. This does look quite different from my usual Friday Night Baroque such as here and yet in essence there is only two fundamental differences.
1. instead of ink outline I used a raw umber watercolour pencil. I think my lines might be somewhat looser but not radically dfiferent
2. I am working with my watercolour paint a LOT wetter  - obviously the result of 1. above is that the lines are dissolving and the wetter paint is doing that even more.
I would like to try again with a little more control....