Supermassive Black Hole A Star

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Ep. 21, Page 67

smbhax on March 6, 2014

Thought I'd try doing a page without using the pencil; I was looking at yesterday's page and noticing the little things off with the pencil lines here and there and thinking that maybe the inertia working against me when it comes to altering drawn lines, especially on this watercolor paper where they don't always erase completely, was kind of holding me back in terms of drawing; like, on http://smbhax.com/?e=0021because the materials I was using back then weren't intended for that sort of thing, really.
Well now I'm using watercolor stuff that *is* designed for that sort of thing, and not so much for pencil, so maybe it makes sense to give that approach another try. I feel like it can definitely help me get toward a more expressive, painterly mode, which I've found myself unable to get into when using pencil linesbut it will also be a challenge to do complicated layouts and sharp features without them.
Today's layout, for instance, was pretty basictoo basic? It didn't come out quite as disastrously as I'd feared it might, though. Here are some intermediate steps (another tricky thing about this approach is that it can look like an absolute disaster most of the way through, until you put in the final light/dark detailsespecially the white ink!right at the end):

So…I dunno. I think I can get better at it, but I don't think I'll ever be able to match the crispness and the subtle dynamism of layout I got with through the pencil in, say, http://smbhax.com/?e=0021 really what I should just get better at is a) erasing and redrawing when necessary and b) ignoring the pencil lines in watercolor when necessary. Maybe I'll give this no-pencil thing another page or two to see if I can stumble upon some kind of breakthrough with it.

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fallopiancrusader at 1:53PM, March 9, 2014

I know of one artist (Ray Lago) who uses a lightbox to transfer his sketches to watercolor paper. This only works with a low- weight paper though, and you have to do it before the stretching process.

artdude2002 at 11:58AM, March 8, 2014

Any watercolors I have ever done have never seen the light of day. They were that awful. I marvel at the images you are able to create. Absolutely beautiful.

smbhax at 9:45AM, March 7, 2014

Fallopian: Yeah and I've seen a lot of other good artists mention that as part of their process too. I should try it some time--I guess I haven't because it has seemed to me that a) my pencil work is *so* messy that I think I would just tear tracing paper apart and b) I hate tracing! ; )

smbhax at 9:41AM, March 7, 2014

Kim: Yeah I noticed that too, even with really arty watercolors like rainy Paris street scenes you'll see sketched lines underneath. I guess I'm not worried about it in that sense, more that it might have been holding back something in the watercolor drawing--but maybe not anyway!

fallopiancrusader at 7:42AM, March 7, 2014

One approach I have used successfully in the past is to do all of my messy, sketchy pencil layout on a piece of tracing paper, and then use carbon paper to transfer just the final contours of the composition to the watercolor paper. That way, the absolute minimum of graphite ends up on the paper.

KimLuster at 4:37AM, March 7, 2014

It looks good. The details that matter (ie. faces) are a little too far away to notice if lack of pencil affected anything. I've read, though, that pencil lines are sort of an 'accepted' feature with watercolor. Even watercolor art shows (where you're not supposed to use anything but watercolor), the judges accept seeing tell-tale pencil lines through the paint (as long as it's not glaring). I wouldn't overly worry about it.

Supermassive Black Hole A Star

Ep. 21, Page 67

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