Foxes pop up in my sketchbook in the same unexpected, and I hope charming and rather mysterious way, that real foxes turn up in my suburban neighborhood. They are always smaller than expected and trot so quickly past that they are easily missed. The top two-page spread of a Red Fox seems to have a story. It seems like an excerpt from a children’s book, but that’s all there is…so far. The portrait of the Fox also seems to have some story to tell. That seems to be the nature of these elusive animals. A flash of red, and then it’s gone.
Red Foxes in the Woods, mixed mediaRed Foxes, mixed mediaPortrait of Ms. Fox, Conte crayon
My favorite story about a Red Fox was told by a friend. She believes that foxes symbolize her late mother and that when she sees one, it may carry a message for her. Her story was so magical that I painted my yearly Christmas card based on her tale of seeing a Red Fox on the beach. Here is the link to my story of Red Fox on the Beach https://crappycrafters.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/fun-making-the-yearly-christmas-card-the-true-story/
In my last post, I mentioned that one element of the still life I am working on in my teacher’s studio has to come home with me each week. I can’t leave the poinsettia because the studio cats might be tempted to nibble on this toxic plant. So the potted poinsettia gets tucked up in a brown paper bag each week and sits in the passenger seat while I drive home. So far the cold weather has not bothered it. It is so cold in my home studio that the plant is now on my dining room table where it’s nice and warm for this tropical denizen and also warm enough for me to draw it in my sketchbook today without freezing my hands. I sketched the plant loosely in pencil, then inked it in black. I erased the pencil marks, then added the color with a new set of watercolor markers that my daughter gave me for Christmas. The colors are vivid. The brand is ‘Primrosia.’
This year’s Christmas card is a watercolor painting of a chickadee. The birds in my yard rarely pose long enough for their portrait (ha ha) so my source photograph was taken by my art teacher and used, with her permission, as the model for my 2020 card. I finished the painting in the Fall of 2019 and I sent it to the printers this Fall in time to mail out my cards. However, the mail system is so overwhelmed during the Pandemic, that I am sending more digital copies than usual. Merry Christmas!
When I started drawing and writing in my ‘Pandemic sketchbook’ in early Spring at the beginning of the stay-at-home advisory, I might have thought that the pandemic would end before I ran out of blank pages. Sadly, that is not the case. The virus continues to burn through all the dry tinder of non-immune populations worldwide.
I have three pages to go in my sketchbook and a new, blank one waiting to be filled. The latest page is of tumbling leaves falling downward. I wet the paper with a natural sponge, then painted and splattered fall colors onto the damp page. When dry, I drew the leaves. Using dried leaves I had pressed in a book as templates, I traced around them, adding the veins and details later. I’m hoping that by next Spring, when I have filled up Volume 2 of my Pandemic Sketchbook, we have an effective, widely distributed vaccine and the Pandemic is subsiding.
The first watercolor (pictured below) was painted in my Pandemic Sketchbook starting with a loose, wet on wet technique with some dry brush details added later. (Note to impatient people: I use a hair dryer to speed up the drying time so I can add the next layer of color sooner rather than waiting.) The sketchbook paper is intended for dry media and not really thick enough for watercolor as it tends to buckle. Despite that, the paper can handle a pencil sketch with a light watercolor wash, if not overworked. The intense red and green colors of the peppers are much better in this painting than in the next version of the still life, but I don’t remember exactly how I blended those colors to get that intensity (or ‘high chroma’/‘saturation’.) I always use the same limited watercolor palette so that was not the variable. Probably using less water on my brush and on the mixing tray before applying the paint to the paper made the hues more intense. I’ll have to remember this…
Peppers and White Pumpkin, watercolor
The second watercolor (below) was painted on heavier watercolor paper starting with wet on wet then adding details with watercolor pencils later. The objects have a more hard-edged style than the first painting which tends to make them look a bit flat. I added highlights by trying to leave white paper, then by removing (picking up) pigment with a wet brush, and finally by adding white gouache which sadly looks a bit chalky. Another problem is the shadow on the left side of the pumpkin which looks like a sunken bruise. I might go back to soften the hard edges by picking up some pigment and fix the ‘bruise’ perhaps by continuing the indentation ‘line’ of the pumpkin and blending out the shadow. I’m at the point where I am a bit tired of painting this still life though, so I’ll let it rest for a while. The 140 lb watercolor paper can take a lot more abuse and redos than the 60 lb sketchbook paper so I can’t use material failure as an excuse to stop working on this version of the still life.
Peppers and Pumpkin, watercolor
So what have I learned by painting the same still life twice? The quality and weight of paper definitely affects the outcome. Hard edges fight with the illusion of volume, as my teacher pointed out when she saw my preliminary posts on Instagram. White highlights are best if you don’t paint over that lightest spot in the first place. Maybe I should get some masking fluid? I still struggle with wet on wet followed by a dry brush for details because the dry brush details sometimes obliterate the spontaneity of the wet technique. I should make a color chart to practice getting the right intensity of color and how to mix my colors and so on. You can see my small palette in the phot so a color chart would be manageable. And finally, draping a piece of white sheet over my drafting lamp makes a surprisingly nice still life backdrop!
Anne deFuria 