Ten technique exercises, coming up!
Line Drawing: This was one of the first line drawing exercises I did. Even though it's not as realistic as I usually prefer, I think it shows confidence and bit of style (for example, the shading made of straight lines where curved ones would have been more traditional).
Watercolor: My goal with this illustration was to let the medium do its thing by filling in areas of color and manipulating it to exaggerate the watercolory texture. I think illustration doesn't always have to be particularly expressive; sometimes it's nice to create a pattern or a design with traditional media.
Self Portrait: This wasn't technically an exercise, but I'm counting it as one because I did five or six self portraits before I picked one. I think this shows an interesting interaction between line and color wash since neither component is tightly rendered, but they combine to make a fairly realistic image. I also like the muted color palette.
Line/Wash: This is an example of a watercolor with a little line art thrown in. I used a few different watercolor techniques in this exercise, like wet-on-dry foliage and picked-out pigment on the door. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure if this would be as interesting if the door were any other color.
Watercolor: I painted this so long ago, but I still remember having fun doing it! I seem to recall staying up way too late to add vines to the roof. The building required a bit of planning - I had to think about how to break it down into planes of color, as well as plan the spots that needed to be left blank, like the fancy white ironwork. This is one piece I think looks better without line art, because the cool part about it is the way the structure is subtly suggested with washes.
Watercolor: This reminds me of what my house looked like in the summer! Doesn't it look warm? Anyway, like the previous house, this one uses tinted planes to suggest the architecture, and I think I managed to do the trees fairly well even without a fan brush.
Watercolor: Just like the stained glass illustration, I tried experimenting with the medium in this one. I blended colors within an area, like the street, and even left some dry brush marks. I know the structure and composition leave the whole thing looking a little square, but to me the natural variation of the hand-painted edges give it enough movement and character. It reminds me of the Chelsea district - cool, clean, and artsy.
Line: Gabe! I miss him. I don't think I've showed him this drawing; he'd probably hate it. But I think it's a good example of my line art illustration style: straight hatching, contoured hatching (in the hair), outlines, contrast, and a simple background. And a whimsical subject.
Watercolor: When I found this photo on my phone, I knew I had to try to paint it. The shadows are particularly awesome, and I thought it would be a challenge. It was. I'd already played with negative space and watercolor, so I thought I would at least try to vary the color within the chairs. I also wanted the shadows to stand out, so I made them a little darker than they should be, and I left the background blank.
Painted Line: This didn't take me too long, and it proved to me that I should try doing things quickly more often! But of course some parts turned out better than others: Gabe looks like Gabe, but Sam doesn't look so much like himself, and the glasses are kind of interesting, but the right side of the table is muddy. I guess you get what you get.
