Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Stream of Consciousness

I was able to take an extended "coffee break" today so I painted in my journal for a while. The drawing was laid down in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, based on a number of doodles, styles, and thoughts I've been tossing around in a passport sized Moleskine.



Here are some of those doodles.


You may have noticed my brothers popping up quite a bit these days. I've been writing a story based on my family, and since I'm not in the drawing stage yet, I'm still playing around with styles, approaches, and just getting an overall feel for the "characters". The more cartoonish characters you see reoccurring (the bear, squirrel and my ever-present cat) are part of a separate project that will hopefully be making its debut a lot sooner.

6 comments:

HelldorinStudio said...

there is so many things interesting here !!! great blog !

Anonymous said...

Awesome sketch. What were you using for the colors?

Anonymous said...

i really enjoy the work you do in that journal.

quick question though: i nthe journal what sort of paper is it? it seems to take well to paint, i've been looking for some sort of sketchbook that i can paint in.

Mike Dutton said...

Thanks Aksel. :)

Hi Donal, I used acrylics. It's one of my least favorite mediums (I prefer gouache), but you can't really beat the durability/ versatility combo it offers when playing in sketchboks.

Jonathan, the journal is from New York Central Art Supply. I was out there last July and that's when I picked it up. It's 50% rag, which is kind of a bummer, but the pages do hold paint very nicely. And even with heavy black india ink, you rarely get any ghosting on the other side of the page.

That said, the paper will still buckle if you're working a lot of paint into it. My advice for those wanting to paint in their books is to seal the paper early on with acrylic matte or gloss medium.

In my case, I usually do a drawing first, ink or paint it with a thin wash in either watercolor or acrylic ink, then I apply my layer of medium. I then build up thin glazes in acrylics (which further seals the paper), before laying on the heavy paint.

Sometimes I try to be more spontaneous and I go right in impasto brushwork, but that's usually entirely in gouache with no medium, and I also get far more disastrous results.... but it's fun. :)

Hope that helps.

Anonymous said...

thanks for the insight,it helps quite a bit. :)

Unknown said...

Great sketches here, and I definitely did notice your bros turning up more in those sketches. Looking forward to your story on The Brothers Dutton :)
You are on fire good sir-s