Erin O'Toole

Black and White

Charcoal and white conte on Canson paper.

Drawing in black and white is a rest. Concentrating on the light I can let the paper carry the mid-tones.

These squirrels knew I was in a black and white mood. I had just decided to do some ink drawing and looked up to see them posing in the tree that broke in this year's wind. This is the same tree that the baby owls lived in last spring.

I started with Pigma pen, then added some darks with my brush pen and smeared things with a bit of water.

Flowers in Gouache

One thing I like about painting from life is all the things that happen while you are sitting and drawing.
While I painted these lilacs several pipevine swallowtails visited. They hovered about checking each flower. Then out of nowhere a tiny, reddish brown hummingbird flew in to taste the lilacs.
I use gouache when I need a good purple color. An underpainting of white with yellow helps some of the green leaves stand out on gray paper. The paper I used is from a tablet Strathmore Charcoal paper in various colors.

Brush Pens

These sketches were draw with a black Pentel Color Brush. I took it with me the other day to use for my "warm up drawings". It was so much fun I drew pages of horses with it.

On some of the sketches I smeared the ink a bit with water and a regular brush.