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Water Soluble Graphite & Watercolor: Waiting for the Coffee to Brew (& a video of Jamie Wyeth painting a large watercolor on cardboard)
Friday, August 1, 2014 14:51
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Waiting for the Coffee to Brew – 8×9 Water Soluble Graphite & Watercolor
My friend JMC came over the other day with new art supplies. We set up a still life and used water soluble graphite in a tin (made by Artgraf), and a water soluble sketching pencil (made by Derwent) [See below]. The products are quite different in saturation & lift-ability on cold press paper vs plate-finish illustration board. The saturation was much lighter in value on the cold press, but very dark & rich on the plate finish surface. The cold press paper also didn’t allow the graphite washes to lift or erase as easily as one might expect, but while re-wetting the graphite on the illustration board, it lifted completely, to stark white, so if you wanted to knock value back just a bit with a wet brush, that required some strategy to avoid lightbulb whites. Who knew paper would make such a difference in the performance of simple pencil lead? Art-Brain-Aerobics.
Last night, I started another experiment with the graphite – again on illustration board – laying it down in thick and thin washes, and adding watercolor. It was satisfying to drybrush the facial details today, while listening to an audio book. I often wonder how Andrew & Jamie Wyeth work(ed) in drybrush on such large pieces, as it requires quite a bit of focus and concentration for me. This week, I found a video of Jamie painting a mass of seagulls and a figure on a huge piece of cardboard. You can see it below.
Have you found any art making videos on youtube or vimeo that inspire you? If so, please share the links in the comments. The art above is available in my Etsy Shop.
Scumbling loose washes of color over the graphite
Testing effects of water soluble graphite on a still life using a pencil (by Dewent) and graphite compressed in a tin (by Artgraf) on plate finish illustration board
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a Jamie Wyeth exhibit right now. If I lived in New England, I’d go, but since I don’t, I’m very grateful for digital publishing, because we can all have a little glimpse & preview the exhibition here. We can also watch this compelling short video (below) of the artist working with watercolor on a giant sheet of cardboard (!!). (If you get this blog via email, you can see the video here.)
Art Quote
I look at myself as just a recorder. I just want to record things that interest me in my life and so forth. These paintings are like part of a journal to me. It’s part of my life – I’m in Monhegan – it’s as if I’m drawing a diary. And again, I think a painting – I mean, what is it? It’s a piece of canvas, a stick with some hair on the end of it, and then there’s some sticky stuff called paint, and you apply that. And there’s nobody standing over you, saying “Paint!” every day. And I think in painting, much like music or a pianist or whatnot, you have to practice, and it certainly isn’t all inspired! I mean, many times, working with the gulls, there’s some sort of drudgery – but once in awhile – things really click, and that’s… that’s the opiate! When that gull all of a sudden breathes and becomes a fire source, I mean that’s why you paint! That’s why I paint.
