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.