Bryan’s 100 Day Mixed Media Sketchbook

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thanks Deborah. Yes, it’s great that we are learning together 🙂. I’ve tried watercolor a couple times, and I found it to be incredibly difficult to control the flow of water/paint. I want to try the water soluble crayons because I could get the colors looking right using the normal coloring technique, and then add a bit of water to make them look like watercolor paintings. I still feel like my most natural preferred medium is pastel, but I want to get soft pastels instead of oil pastels. I also gravitate towards pastel artists stylistically, with some of my favorites being Degas, Gauguin, Mary Cassatt, Millet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir. I also really like some of the new work being done with mixed media, such as using Golden acrylics. If you are interested, I recommend checking out Jean Pederson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNpU4dr8qGY
I’ve found the mess from oil painting to be more of a problem than the smell. I use odorless Gamsol. However, you still have to be careful about ventilation. I also recommend only using Gamsol to clean your brushes, and use M. Graham’s Walnut Oil or safflower or linsead oil to use as you are painting. I have separate sealable, leakproof jars for each.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 19. I decided to go further on this one than I originally planned because it was fun to just keep coloring. Most of it below the neck had no pencil outline. This one is definitely not perfect, but I still feel I improved on drawing a portrait by Ingres compared to my last challenge. 

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 20. I’m working on a portrait of my wife using crayon. Here is the block in. 

[Debbie H]

I’m looking forward to seeing this one 🙂! Good work on the Ingres master study. Can you make the core shadow follow contours more so it’s not such a straight line? I’d probably do it by running it over the cheekbone and into the eye socket. That being said, I don’t know how you get facial detail at this scale with crayons! Do you sharpen them?

Thanks for the advice on oil painting. I had suspected it might be messy – that was my other thing to ask. I could still give it a go at some stage because I love the texture artists achieve with it, but despite its difficulty, watercolour is feeling promising to me, the very little I’ve done. I know this is ridiculous, but I don’t like getting my hands dirty, so I’ll end up doing something with either a paintbrush or pencil 😆!

I haven’t had time to look at the video yet, but I will. There are all sorts of interesting media to try. Experimenting is part of the process at the moment.

Keep up the good work 🙂!

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 21. Here is my progress on the portrait of my wife. Doesn’t look exactly like her, but overall I think this one is going pretty well, despite some difficulties controlling the medium. 

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thanks Deborah 🙂 I see what you are saying about the core shadow. Originally, I was trying to copy the scheme of the painting, and Ingres divided his shadow into browner and bluer/grayer areas. I should have made the grey darker to blend more with the brown so it reads as one shadow shape. Yes, crayons are tough for details, especially this small. All of my works so far have been 5.5 x 8.5. Yes, I do sharpen the crayons using this ridiculous sharpener that came with the box. Doesn’t work very well, but makes me smile every time I use it 🙂. If you do try oil painting, I’d suggest wearing gloves. I wish I still had a place to paint, but on the other hand, my new apartment is helping me think outside the box in terms of materials and methods.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 22. Here is my progress for today. I might finish her hands and legs, or I might leave them impressionistic. Still trying to decide. 

[Debbie H]

Apparently Emily Dickinson wrote all of her poetry on a 17” square writing desk. I know she wrote and we draw, but great things can be done in small spaces 🙂. It’s great you’ve found ways to adapt. Hans Holbein had an interesting way in his drawings of rendering the point of focus and then using line to almost sketch in the areas of lesser importance. Totally different style, but that may be another interesting option if you don’t want to render out the whole thing. Here’s just one example from Pinterest (sorry it’s so big – the option to make it smaller wasn’t there):

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thank you Deborah. I’m a fan of Emily Dickinson 🙂. I agree that there are some great works of art that are very small. Albrecht Durer comes to mind. I probably won’t work this small after I finish filling up this sketchbook, but it has been a nice challenge to learn to work with the limitations of the page. Holbien’s work is great. Thanks for sharing that 🙂. I have a plan to tape a big sheet of paper to the wall in the my apartment, and then use those Caran D Ache watercolor crayons to make a big portrait. It’s just a matter of having the time to do it at this point.

[Debbie H]

Hi Bryan. I’m a fan too 🙂. I think limitations are often a really good thing. Too much choice can be confusing and having to work within restrictions encourages creative thinking. The watercolour crayons look great. You definitely should do some big portraits when you have time, and using wall space is a great idea 🙂!

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thanks Deborah. I picked these up this evening, but probably won’t try them out until tomorrow 🙂. 

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 23. Here is my self portrait block in. Still needs some work before I start coloring. 

[Bryan Mccabe]

Day 24. About half done with this self portrait. Trying to adjust to the new crayons and limited colors. 

[Debbie H]

Gosh you’re creative with colour! This is very cool! Are these the new crayons and how are you finding them? Do you see these colours, or are they purely a creative choice? Keep up the good work 🙂.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Thank you Deborah 🙂 Yes, these are the new crayons. The colors are absolutely beautiful, and they are so much smoother to color with than Crayola. So far, I haven’t been brave enough to add any water, but I think I will experiment with the background. The really interesting thing is that Caran D’ Ache sells these crayons in both water soluble and non water soluble versions. It might be fun to experiment with using both in the same painting. Also, so far I haven’t applied any fixatives, but this can be done between layers to build use colors and textures. I could also use the crayons as a base layer, and add pastel on top of it. This is my first attempt, so I wanted to get comfortable using the  medium normally in this work. The only downside is the art store in town only had the 15 colors box, so my palette is quite limited at the moment. I could go full Zorn with these and only use Vermillion, Yellow Ochre, Black, and White. I decided to add Cobalt Blue to that mix for this one because I saw quite a bit of blue in my skin tone. Overall, I think this one is turning out decent for my first attempt 🙂

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