Autumn 01: 11/02/2023

This week was dedicated to planning and prepping for Sellisternian's autumn themed trio, mainly working on my big ink sketches. You can catch up on last week's work here, the overall idea for Sellisternian here and my practice for this process here.

I needed a fresh round of reference photos and that meant props! I bought some plastic fruit for this purpose and other still life ambitions. They weren't cheap but honestly real fruit is even more expensive nowadays. I'm happy with this set, especially the choice of two different kinds of apples. What I was not willing to buy was a long handled mirror so I cobbled one together with cardboard and a big paint brush. It's a bit wonky but it just needs to give me a general shape for taking photos. I also wasted a good couple of minutes pretending it was a ping pong...racket? Paddle? Is ping pong a real thing that I remember? It doesn't look real typed out...I'm not going to go and google it or I'll never finish writing this update.

With my trusty tripod and little bluetooth clicky thing, plastic fruit, cardboard mirror and the scarf from an old Princess Leia cosplay I was ready for action! Out of frame are my two dogs staring at me, wondering what I'm up to and waiting for the opportunity to run off with my plastic pear. I got all the shots I needed, disassembled the ping pong mirror and was ready to actually get on with some drawing.

Out came the big A1 cartridge paper and canvas boards to pencil in my ink sketches. Predominant elements for this trio are leaves, mushrooms, acorns, fruit and the idea of unearthing and harvesting. Can you tell that this is my favourite season?

That's a lot to juggle alongside the portrait elements so I'm glad to take the time to sketch it all out now. I noticed that this stage was a lot easier this time around compared to when I did it for the Summer Trio, I think I'm actually getting used to working and thinking at this larger scale. Still had a sore arm afterwards though.

Look closely at the third pencil sketch and you can see that I started inking it before I remembered to take an in progress photo. The only reason that this doesn't happen more often is that I literally have signs all over the room saying PROGRESS PHOTOS!!!

It is so relaxing to finish these giant sketches in black ink. One brush, one colour and a bit of water. It frees my mind up to wander and think ahead to painting the finals and all the possible places to add colour and texture. The autumnal colour scheme is a lot more to my personal taste than the summer one, more muted tones contrasting with fiery foliage. I also love drawing mushrooms and leaves so with the addition of my plastic fruit I will be unstoppable!

I was happy to see the three ink sketches lined up and confident to move forward with the Autumn Trio based on them. The final stage was to translate them in to these digital sketches, stripped down to essential outlines. This was a welcome break for my drawing arm after three A1 ink sketches in a row. I did notice how quickly I get bored when drawing on the tablet, it's a great tool but for me the physical nature of painting and drawing is so vital. The process is just as important to me as the final piece.

I'm still working away in my big Landscape Sketchbook. They're a lot of fun to paint and I find them enjoyable to look at but I really can't tell if they look any 'good'? There's something quite ugly about them but I sort of like that about them? They're very messy and warm toned compared to my usual work and it's a bit strange not having any figures or strict objects to focus in on. I think I just need to crack on, keep painting and worry about 'good' later. I'm having a good time and liking what I'm making so I'll just be grateful for that!

The weather is slowly improving so I got to do a little bit of Doodlebook out in nature but mostly I was on the sofa messing around with pears and acorns in preparation for Sellisternian stuff. I don't think I've taken a serious look at acorns before, not with my artist hat on anyway. I love the range of shapes they come in that are well beyond the cartoon image of them I had in my head.

Sadly Studio Club was cancelled this week. I wish that I could tell you I used the two free new hours on Thursday night well but I suppose it depends on whether you consider replaying Fallout 3 in 2023 a good use of time. Even I'm on the fence.

The plan for next week is actually painting the first piece of the Autumn Trio. If that's already done then I'll link it here, otherwise thanks for reading this early and have a great week!