April 12 Entry in Roz's 2016 Fake Journal

Left: My character was sketching Richard again. You can click on the image and read the side notes in an enlargement.

Today I have two images in the post because besides the finished piece my character likes to make correction notes. I thought it would be fun to show the overlay she did after the final sketch to make reminders for herself on where she would make corrections in a final painting.

Left: Overlay with some ink thoughts for corrections. I think she needs to go a lot further and correct the slop as well as the distances. Click on the image to view an enlargement. 

April 11 Entry in Roz's 2016 Fake Journal

Above: 16 x 10 inch cold press watercolor board with pencil and
watercolor sketch of a fox. Click on the image to view an
enlargement.

This was one of the more fun days of the project. For a brief moment I didn't miss gouache, and enjoyed my character's enjoyment of watercolor.

April 10 Entry in Roz's 2016 Fake Journal

Above: 16 x 10 inch cold press watercolor board, with

watercolors, rubberstamp inks, Montana Acrylic Markers,

and a portrait made with Distress Crayons (red) and 

Payne's Gray Watercolor, collaged onto the board.

The detailed caption says it all. Click on the image and seen an enlargement so you can see the details. This entry was all about texture for me and my character.

April 9 Entry in Roz's 2016 Fake Journal

Above: 16 x 10 inch cold press watercolor board with washi
tape and pencil and watercolor sketch. Click on the image to view
and enlargement and read the text.

My character also enjoys working with pencil and watercolor while drawing from old family photos.

April 8 Entry in Roz's 2016 Fake Journal

Left: Even my fake character gets to sketch Dick. 10 x 16 inch cold press watercolor board with pencil and watercolor. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I think today's post is pretty self explanatory. If you read the text you'll understand what my character is thinking.

April 7 Entry in Roz's 2016 Fake Journal

Above: 16 x 10 inch watercolor and brush pen sketch on
Arches Watercolor Board, with rubberstamp text. Click on the
image to view an enlargement.

Day sever of International Fake Journal Month brings more experiments with the watercolor board. (And sometimes it's difficult to stop the fake journal from overlapping a little with the real life.)

I'm using up the last of my non-floral Brilliance. I'm sick at heart that they decided to add a fragrance to my favorite rubberstamp ink.

April 6 Entry in Roz's 2016 Fake Journal

Above: 16 x 10 inch Cold Press Arches Watercolor Board, 

pencil (warm up sketches) and solid paint marker and watercolor.

This is the April 6 entry in  my 2016 fake journal. Warm up gestures and a study of a Bantam. The warm-ups were made from a Minnesota State Fair video.

Above: Detail of the main sketch. You can see the red broken lines of the
solid paint marker at the top of the beak and in some of the other areas.

Next I followed those up warm up sketches with the main sketch (top half of the board). I used a solid marker from Sakura. You can see the pen here at Jet Pens. The pen is actually a solid stick-core of "paint" that's stiffer than crayon, but on the textured watercolor board it gives that rough crayon look. (Note: when used on smoother paper the line is much smoother.)

I made the main sketch using life drawings I'd done at previous Fairs for my source material. I was hoping the combination of the crude line tool and the drawings of drawings would get to a looser state for the final sketch. A sort of reduction of a reduction. (Or at least that is what my character was thinking.)

Additional Note on the Sakura Solid Marker: I really like working with these for loose sketching, HOWEVER, they have a chemical smell that is relatively slight, but too much for me. I found that sketching with one for about an hour on another occasion gave me a headache. I also found that it didn't air out right away so I wouldn't be able to use in my regular journal. On single boards used for this project it was no problem, because I could put the board in a separate room to air out. The good news is if odors don't bother you this is a fun pen for life drawing, gesture sketching, great for adding quick washes or layers of glazing over. It goes on dry and I noticed little pick up of color when washing over it. It's also a finer point (as you can see from the product photos at the above link) than solid paint markers made for kids. This makes it easier to do fine detail.

April 5 Entry in Roz's 2016 Fake Journal

Above: 10 x 16 inch cold press watercolor board.
Click on the image to view an enlargement.

This was one of the most fun days so far, of course—because it was birds. It was one of the most fun also for me because I was finally getting back into a bit of a routine with the watercolor. (I've been spending all my time with gouache and I found it interesting to switch my brain back to think about glazing and washes and different amounts of water and wetness.)

My character sketched these from sketches made from life for positions with photo references for color reminders. I think she has a project but she still wasn't talking. She likes to do lots of studies. Lots of studies.

April 4 Entry in Roz's 2016 Fake JournalT

The finished page: 10 x 16 inch watercolor
board (cold press) with warm up sketches
at the bottom. See the rest of the post for other views.

Day 4 was the best so far, because of course I was visiting with my friend Tom and able to work on the fake journal at the same time.

This is the board masked off during the
drawing process.

You can see the warm up sketches and the final sketch I made as the first image in this post, but I thought you would also like to see the fun my character had with masking. You can see that in the other images. Click on them to view an enlargement.

The mask was in place as she drew with the PPBP and then she painted only the exposed area of the board as you can see in the second image. Later she removed the mask and she added it to the back of the board as shown in one of the photos.

Here's the mask saved on the back of
the board.

To save time the REAL Roz masked the board all up before Tom arrived and the bottom portion of the yellow mask folded down over the warm up area when warm up time was over. I felt this was the most respectful thing to do to not waste Tom's time. (Portrait time under 50 minutes including warm ups and painting.) We'll never really know if the character would have been that respectful, but I think she would have been, based on the little I've gleaned.

April 3 in Roz's 2016 Fake Journal

Above: 16 x 10 inch Cold Press Watercolor board. 
Various watercolors and rubber stamp ink.
Click on the image to view an enlargement. The left image is on
Fluid EZ-block, the right image is on Hahnemühle Turner Watercolor
paper, 140 lb. both cold press. Collaged to a prepainted board.

Entry 3 found my character going about town and even going to a local sketch out. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Just a head's up, the Turner paper used on the right is too soft (and something HE would NEVER USE). Tape used on the edges pulled up and it was only there for less than an hour. (Lots of people talked to me during this outing so I had to go in and out of character.)

April 2, 2016 in Roz's Fake Journal

Above: 16 x 10 inch Cold Press Watercolor board.
Various watercolors and rubber stamp ink.
Click on the image to view an enlargement. 

As I mentioned in yesterday’s introduction to this project my character loves frisket! I guess on day 2 the real Roz wasn’t quite ready to give up backgrounds yet.

The character was working with Payne’s Gray Watercolor and sketching pigeons from an aviary in different ways to work with that paint. She painted over a direct brush version on the right, but frankly I think that was the real Roz saying let’s go in closer because I’m frustrated with all this glazing.

We’ll never really know.

As I said, I was pretty grumpy (even when sketching birds) the first week.

The April First Entry in My 2016 Fake Journal

The finished April 1, 2016 entry.

While I was able to start my fake journal for 2016 on April 1, and continue it, I’ve yet to post about it. Life has been very packed. Finding time to squeeze the project in has been goal one.

Click on any image to see an enlargement.

Today I’d like to start posting the images from the project. I’ve been torn as to whether I should post explanations about my pieces here or on my regular blog—by explanations I mean some step-by-step process discussion. I’m still not sure and at this point I simply want to get some posts up. I think there will be a little bit here and a little bit on my regular blog. We’ll see.

Keeping with this year’s theme of “Shift in Place” and my suggestion that people not do any prep, or do minimal prep (take stock of what supplies they have on hand for example) I waited to jump in on April 1. I did buy and cut boards and I knew my character would be working mostly with pencil and watercolor on cold press watercolor board.

You can read my thoughts about this minimal preparation here.

Stage 1: the background
with the pencil sketch clearly visible.

We are now 19 days into the project and frankly I still can’t tell you much about my character. I didn’t shift a whole lot from myself. She has similar interests—particularly in sketching portraits (people or animals). 

What I can tell you is different is that she is good at setting time aside for painting in her life. The project is about taking time. I think I needed that in my life right now.

This brings up a lot of discomfort for me. I like to work in the bits of time I can find. I push myself too hard. I don’t make time for projects that require a lot of extended work because I’m too busy with other things (as we all are). But in recent months my attitudes have been shifting as I look at how I’ll be spending my free time going forward. And also as I look at how teaching online is working with the rest of my life. 

Stage 2: Light Washes of Watercolor
and some background adjustments.

Knowing the why or how of something doesn’t always lessen the discomfort. The first week of this project I was pretty grumpy. I think that came from the realization that there wasn’t enough time in the world to give me the time I needed or WANTED to spend on the project I wanted to do. That made me grumpy.

But Dick pointed out I’m always grumpy at first, until I start to settle into the character, to hear the character in any odd moments. Then things start to feel more “normal” and I grumble less. I even get excited about various pieces. Right now in week 3 territory there’s the inevitable shifting of boundaries and testing whether something needs to evolve, we’ll see how that goes.

Stage 3: I start to put in light
washes of watercolor.

I laugh about the early weeks now. But I still don’t know this character at all because she doesn’t keep a journal like I do, she simply paints. She likes to play with space, and she is a really big fan of masking tape and frisket.

I know I struggled a couple days over whether to use ink or not but then I realized when my friend Tom came over to sit for a portrait for this project that there was no question that my character would have used the PPBP with watercolor because she uses what’s efficient and works to the scale she wants to do and the time frame she has. So except for the fact she sometimes uses pencil and that she glazes and glazes and glazes, we aren’t that different.

We’ll see how it all pans out. 

Stage 4: I have to do something about
the background color in the hair
so I use some white gouache.

In this post I’ve started with the final image which is Derwent Drawing Terra Cotta pencil on Arches Cold Press watercolor board, with watercolor, and then corrections in that Terra Cotta pencil. (The light blue in the image is Montana Acrylic Marker.)

I thought you might enjoy seeing the steps as I moved along.

The REAL ROZ is a bit perturbed at how the likeness got lost from the pencil to the painting. And so my editing eye had to have a little chat with her editing eye, and so it goes. This will need to be an ongoing discussion.

Stage 5: More glazes.

What follows are the remaining stages that I took photos of. I wasn't great at stopping at set points to take a photo. I just took them when I remembered. 

I did realize that working on painted backgrounds as I did in my regular journals wasn't going to work for this project as it created too many issues with the watercolor. I have been more careful going forward. 

The images show a color shift because I didn't have the best of lighting conditions to shoot them under. The final image, appearing at the top of this column is an accurate scan.

I'm unclear why Blogger is arranging images with the text the way it is, but I don't use this blog enough to know the ins and outs. I hope you'll bear with me.

Stage 6: the final stage
before I added
by sketch materials
(collage) and
did drew in the notes.

2016 International Fake Journal Month Begins Today

I am wishing every 2016 participant the best of luck as you begin your project today. I hope that you have fun, that you push yourself, that you learn a ton, and that you gain insights that you can use in your regular journaling and creative life.

Remember to let me know if you want to be in the Facebook group in order to share your images. Or if you are sharing your images publicly on a dedicated blog or Flickr or a website send me a direct line after you have five entries up and I'll add you to the Participants list in the right-hand column.

Have a great celebration.