Rush

I started today with some quick experiments on the back of a failed watercolour, testing out a few possible colour triads and comparing the results of wetting each layer individually to only applying water after all three colours were down.  I came to the conclusion that sherbert lemon, poppy red and violet would make. good combination and that I was better off only wetting the marks after all three colours were down.

And then I for to work.  I picked a photo of Rush, a band that I’ve drawn before in markers, deliberately choosing one with a white background so that I didn’t need to paint it all in.  I marked out a grid, drew in pencil outlines, rubbed out the grid lines, softened all the other lines and reached for the inktense pencils.  I put down yellow on all the light, middle and dark res, then the red on the middle and darks and the violet on the darks.  And when I was finally happy, I wet all the pencil marks, one band member at a time no starting in each case with the dark areas before moving in to the middles and the lights.  I tinkered a little in places where I thought I needed some more marks, then left everything to dry and rubbed off any remaining pencil marks.  And that was me done.

And, let me tell you, that was a fun experience.  It was a much faster project than I was expecting, with hardly any time spent waiting for things to dry.  I found it much easier to stick to the Art Assist app with the inktense pencils than with watercolour: I felt in control, at least while putting down the inktense pencil marks.  And the best think about inktense pencils is that I can rub off all my pencil outlines at the end.  On the one hand I was sad to remove so many details that I’d spent time drawing in.  But on the other hand everything looks cleaner no so much is left to the viewer’s imagination.

Likeness-wise, it’s a reversal of last time around with Alex Lifeson on the right being the best likeness, Geddy Lee on the left being the worst and the key Neil Peart in the middle being, well, in the middle.  I’m amazed by Alex in particular and about how a likeness can be created from so few marks.

And as a whole, the painting works for me.  I can feel the personalities there and all that white and missing detail make the band look as if they’re in the spotlight.  This painting (and the idea of using the Artist Assist app with inktense pencils) was a big success.  This one’s up for sale.