ink drawing – Daily Fiber

Friday Finish: Tutorial with Shari Blaukopf

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Laura Kate

Earlier this year I shared some work made following a tutorial taught by Montreal artist Shari Blaukopf. She is an urban sketcher and watercolorist who offers a wide range of online lessons through Teachable. Today I finished painting A French Village Scene, which is the final lesson in her course by the same name.

https://learn.shariblaukopf.com/courses/

The challenges were multiple: perspective drawing, sketching in ink, and completing the scene with watercolor.

Here is Shari’s reference photo. She took it while teaching in France this year.

I labored over the perspective drawing for 2 or more hours. Perspective drawing doesn’t come easily to me, and I wanted my work to be believable, if not 100% accurate. When satisfied, I inked the important lines and erased the pencil marks.

I was forced to take some liberties with the scene, because my paper was not proportional to the original. Mine is wider.

I did most of the painting before our Thanksgiving trip to Wisconsin. Returning home, I was keen to finish this and get it off my workspace. Other projects, both started and planned are stacking up awaiting my attention.

Here is my (almost) final painting.

It’s a truism, at least for painters, that they must take some time away from a work before deciding that it is finished. So that’s what I will do. Even looking at it now, I see a few areas that need more work.

drawing, painting

100-Day Project: Days 6 through 12

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Laura Kate

For this week, I worked with a very nice selection of Bill’s photographs.

I was drawn to this one by its lines, texture and geometry. To bring those characteristics to the fore, I used pen and ink to render the cross.

DAY 6:

Day 7: Adding Sumi ink wash.

Photograph Two

In looking at this photograph of waterlilies, I got the impression that the leaves and blooms rising above the water line looked like actors on a stage, with the flat lily pads as the audience. To emphasize this impression, I used mostly pencil, and a cool wash to the background; warm, bright paint to the subjects.

Days 8 and 9:

Photograph Three.

Bill’s close up of a wood duck was begging for another paint swatch study. So that what I did on Day 10.

First, I brightened up the image using photo editing software. Using my watercolors, I discovered that it took eleven different pigments to match all the different colors of this bird. And after I finished the swatches, I was in love with wood ducks. So, I proceeded to paint him.

Days 11 and 12:

That finished out my week. Looking back at what I had done, I noticed that most of the work was realism. I’d like to challenge myself to try for more abstract images in the next week.