Badlands Two

Done?

Base layer

The first Badlands painting was an interesting experiment, so I thought I’d try again. My reference photos were from a cloudy day, so I am having a harder time establishing the shady areas. All in all, I have been pleased. I have been watching some Ian Roberts youtube videos and even though he is an oil painter, I have found some valuable advise for my acrylics.

Badlands

Is it done?

Preliminary colors

I have been watching the youtube channel of Ian Roberts and been inspired to try a more complex, yet simplified landscape using shapes and colors more than details. This is what I have come up with for a first attempt. My photos from a vacation trip were taken on a cloudy day, so there wasn’t a lot of contrast to work from and I am kind of winging it.

I worked over about four days on it and am letting it sit a bit for now. I am happy with it overall, except for that larger shrub on the left. The crevice in the rocks below looks more like a tree trunk than a crack and misleads the eye. I haven’t quite figured out what to do about it yet. Time will tell.

Geraniums

I saved it!

Uh-oh. Oversprayed!

The drawing

I wanted to try something Speedball Elegant Writer pen with a floral motif instead of the lilypads. I kind of like the way it turned out, although it was questionable at the spray stage. I really need to figure out the spraying step. I think that sometimes it doesn’t spread as much as I want right away and so I go back in again and add more water. Then it ends up spreading more than I want as it dries. One of these times it may be good.

I think that the black matting helps unify the whole thing and I may sell these matted as the edges are as not obvious as I would like.

A new landscape

Meh

I thought I’d take another stab at a landscape, but it is meh at best, no matter what I do. I worked over a week on it in short sessions and am about ready to quit on it. I think I will let it sit a month and re-evaluate. I’m still having a hard time with getting depth in acrylics.

Matted and colored for number 3

Matted

Watercolored

Spritzed

Third time success. Overall, I think I like this series of paintings. It took me a bit to remember what I was doing (LOL), but I did manage to contol the water induced bleed. I like the jewel/stained glass quality of the watercolors and the black mat helps unify it all.

A third try

Inked

Pencilled in

Maybe third time is the charm. Or maybe too much, too little, and just right. Here is number three for the Speedball Elegant pen.

Second try

Matted in black

Watercolored

Spritzed

A little too little this time. I went back in and added more ink which helped. I need to get the spritzing better too. All in all though, it’s not bad with a black mat.

Elegant Writer attempt number 2

Much less ink

Smaller drawing pencil up

Let’s try this again. Last time I had too much in the inking. I’m going for somewhat less this time around. I have not done this for many years and I have just forgotten what happens and why. Here’s to number two being better than number one. (Although I did like how number one turned out after I fussed with it.)

It looks a bit batik-y

Matted in black

Too much of the spritz

After the mess of the spritzing above, I just hoped to salvage the previous work I had done. And I think I did! All of that excessive flow from the over spritzing (I had forgotten exactly how it was done LOL) was quite mess. I had nothing to lose at that point and decided to just put on the watercolor overlay. I thought if it didn’t do the job, I could try some acrylics, too, but I am actually pretty happy with this. It has a bit of a jewel quality to it and now that it has set a few days, it looks batik-y to me. How about you? The black mat helps set it off.

An experiment

inked up with the Elegant Writer Pen

I haven’t used the Speedball Elegant Writer pen technique in a while and I thought I might try it again, just for a change of pace and some fun. I thought the lily pond sketches would be sufficiently different from the paintings and provide a whole new look.

It’s been inked up now. We’ll see what happens when I spritz it with water and the ink spreads and then becomes waterproof and I can add watercolors