Erin O'Toole

Three Tips

• Watercolor washes in journals or any thin paper tend to buckle. I work around this problem by placing the journal under a stack of books for several hours. Keep an eye on the painted parts of the page, when the sheen is gone it is time to press.

• When you are finishing sketches in your journals, work from the most recent pages back to earlier ones.

• Sharpen your pencils with a knife and sandpaper. Take the wood back about three quarters of an inch with the knife, then sharpen the lead with sandpaper. Sharpen several at once. Keep the beveled edge sharp by not turning the pencil too much as you draw.

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.

 

 

 

Finishing

It is often several days, maybe weeks, before I finish sketches from a trip or drawing day. I don't want to start by placing water color washes over every line. Sometimes the line is the best part.

What is often missing in a sketch is the background. By background I mean everything that is not the main subject. With line work is can be difficult to not make the background too busy. My object is to insist the background play a supporting role and not take over the sketch.