Darth Vader, White on Black

After finishing my Darth Vader portrait in pencil, it got me thinking...since Darth Vader is so black, why not start with black paper and just draw in the white?  I didn't have any black paper laying around but I did have some butcher paper, and as long as I was working on butcher paper, I might as well just use crayons! And we are not talking fancy conte crayons or anything close. I grabbed a jumbo crayola. Go big or go home, right? So the size of this piece is about  27" x 36", pretty big for my standards. I used the same reference photo as I did for the pencil drawing. This actually took much less time than the pencil drawing even though it is much bigger.

Darth Vader pencil drawing

So I guess I've got a Star Wars theme going here: Kylo Ren, a stormtrooper, and Boba Fett. So it wouldn't be complete without a portrait of Darth Vader! It is very interesting to see how a character that is completely black turns out to actually be all different values reflecting more light than would be expected.
So is this a sketch or a drawing? Although this is not on high quality drawing paper, it did start out as a sketch in my sketchbook. But as I added in more finishing touches, I think it developed more into a drawing. Is there a time limit on a sketch? I once read that sketches are less than an hour, and since his took a couple hours (it's hard to tell exactly since this was three different short sittings), I am going to call it a drawing.
It seems like today's trend is to be ultra-realistic, but that is definitely not my style. I love being able to see the strokes of the artist, or pencil lines in this case. I'm sure I could go in with a blending stump and remove all of the lines (if my sketchbook paper could handle it) but I think leaving it the way it is gives it character and movement within the portrait.

Sunrise pedestrian bridge watercolor

Although this doesn't seem like much of a Valentine's day post, the Sunrise pedestrian bridge is one if the places I took my wife on our second date almost 24 years ago. She has always loved this bridge, so I thought I would dedicate this painting to my wife.
 I based this painting on a photo I had taken on the same outing as I had taken photos for Autumn along the river, so the color palette is very similar, and I love the reflections on the calm water of the river.

Quetzal watercolor

The quetzal is the national bird of Guatamala, as well as being on their flag. The more colorful one, shown here, is the male. The reason that I decided to paint this though is because my nephew's daughter is named after the bird. She is graduating in June and I thought a painting of her name-sake would be a cool present.

This painting actually took longer than most because I got "stuck" several times. It started with having to alter my reference photo because it was too long for my paper. I curled the tail feathers to accomodate it all. Feathers have always been a little intimidating, but I think that I depicted them quite well. Then the background got too muddy, but I lifted some of the paint to create a jungle backdrop. Now my challenge is to find a frame that this odd sized painting will fit into.

trees

I first started this "creative journey" of mine back in 2012, and every once in a while, I like going back and looking at some of my older work to see my progress. I came across my painting of "trees" in one of my friends' living room. He had purchased it from a silent auction that I had donated it to. I had never blogged on this painting, but I remember it well. I painted this in February 2013 plein air along the American River. It was a quiet spot at a bend in the channel by the islands near Rio American HS. (Right around the corner from where I had painted plein air painting small rapids almost a year later, one of my favorite areas along the river!)

My friend had told me he had felt a connection to this painting because another friend of his had created a similar watercolor, based on a poem that he had written. Here is the poem that my friend had written:

And here is the painting that his poem inspired:

Whirling dervish with coffee

I have been meaning to paint a whirling dervish for a while (my wife is a big Rumi fan) so I thought I would start with a simple study in Coffee...yeah right, anything but simple. It all started when my coffee maker decided not to work, and I figured I could make coffee on the stove. Well I quickly managed to burn a pot of coffee. I have tried painting with coffee before (Leopard with Coffee) and realized that normal coffee won't do, it has to be a very thick consistancy, and well, I was almost there with my burnt coffee...definitely not drinkable at this point.

Once I had my "paint" made then it was just a matter of finding the right values to capture shadows and highlights. Other than my pencil lines in my sketch outline, this is completely painted with coffee.

Boba fett, photo progression

I guess I've got a Star Wars theme going here. Here is some retro Star Wars for you: Boba Fett. I started this portrait as a quick pencil sketch (not shown) with the intention of tracing it onto watercolor paper so that I could do this in watercolor. But then I just kept adding on to the original sketch which was on copy paper.  First I added in all the shading with just pencil...

Then I started to add in some color with colored pencil...not something I work with very often so I wasn't too happy with it at this point, so let's keep working it...

Smoothed out some of the colored pencil lines and added in a background but the shading originally done with pencil has lost its some of its effect...

What do you think?  I still like the one in just pencil but it is interesting how far a simple sketch can go!