I’ve been going back to basics and learning to draw human anatomy (painting portraits is also part of the practice). That means learning which bones go where, which muscles go between and over them and how they squash and stretch depending on the pose. The drawings aren’t nice to look at but the process of doing them helps me understand and remember. Maybe I’ll show them if and when they actually look good.

But I’ve been neglecting my watercolors so I remedied that with a figure drawing and painting over it. I got some new masking fluid (a.k.a frisket) on a whim at the art supply store but had awful experiences with it so I did some research before trying again. The internet suggested using an embossing tool (basically a metal stick with a tiny ball on the end) for application, so I found a new gel pen that still had the rubber covering over the tip in my drawer and it worked perfectly. It’s the light orange stuff on the drapery. It should be brighter and be more visible on the paper but the bottle I got was sitting on the store shelf for a while so the tint was stuck at the bottom and didn’t disperse even after much vigorous shaking.

Pardon the lighting – I was drawing/painting at night and lamps don’t play nice with the phone camera. I did the sketch in red pencil and edited for visibility but the drawing is very faint in real life. But here’s the finished painting under daylight to see the actual colors. I usually prefer not to use frisket because the edges created by masking are too harsh but it worked well with light values here. I also softened them a tad with the lightest dab of a wet brush.

I’m pretty happy with how this came out and also surprised how soft the painting looks compared to the very angular drawing. Even though this study was done with a photo reference, it helped so much to know what bones are underneath.

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Here’s a simple illustration I made for fun that’s been in the works in my sketchbook. Our neighbors’ chickens roam freely across everyone’s lawns. They follow the rooster and don’t like to get left behind and it’s so funny to see the straggler run across the yard to catch up with the group.

The best thing about chickens is that they don’t give a flying flip about anything except digging for bugs and staying with the brood. They are totally indifferent to oncoming traffic and unfamiliar humans. Have you ever seen them lay down on their sides in the grass? These chickens did that. Chickens have different personalities too. There is a white-grey chicken who is a loner and prefers to wander by herself.

Since I’m doing more art on paper, I needed a better scanner to digitize my artwork. My old scanner always had trouble getting correct colors, and scans were blurry when the paper was wavy and/or slightly raised off the glass. In my research, I learned that there are 2 types of sensors in scanners – CIS and CCD. A Contact Image Sensor (CIS) is in most scanners and require the paper to be in contact with the glass to pick up a clear image. I went with a Epson V300 Perfection, a scanner with a CCD sensor (Charged Couple Device), which is better at capturing accurate colors even over rough and lumpy surfaces like watercolor paper.

This scan has no color corrections and looks true to the painting. You can compare the colors to the photo above. Even though the scanner picked up the texture of the paper, artwork itself was captured accurately.

Speaking of colors, I realized how much I like my homemade paint set (show above next to the figure painting) – comprised of mostly Mijello brand paints plus a couple other brands. My plein air set of Schmincke Akademie (student-grade) watercolors seem so much duller by comparison but is appropriate for this subject.

While Schmincke are good watercolors in general, I definitely prefer Mijello. I have a hard time making bright greens whenever I paint on location, but the grass on the chickens painting is effortlessly luminous. It’s probably the difference in paint but I do like the extra mixing wells on the Schmincke travel box. I managed to get a good variety of greens in this sketch though. I guess I should swap the out blue and yellows.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading!