Banshee’s Wail | Watercolour Painting

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A FAILED PIECE

Hello everyone! I’ve finally had the chance to get this one scanned and uploaded. My latest painting Banshee’s Wail ─ taking on themes of Irish folklore. This year has been a roller-coaster in terms of development of artwork and style. Taking this piece for example. What started off as an idea I couldn’t wait to get on paper, transformed into a drawing I really liked, and by the end something I wanted to bury. In the end, I had to settle for being somewhat satisfied in depicting what I had imagined in my head. I’ve found the best remedy in these situations is to just move on and create more.

Banshee’s Wail, watercolours, 8.25×10.75″, 2021

NEW METHODS

If there was one takeaway from this painting, it was the satisfaction of fine-tuning the preliminary stages of my creative process. I’ve been trying out a different way of developing the initial drawings for the transfer stage. With this method I’d be transferring each individual element/figure one at a time from tracing paper onto the final sheet. The idea is to eliminate the need to erase parts of a perfectly good drawing in the vicinity of another detail being added to the artwork. I’m not sure if this is going to be a permanent process, but it seems useful at the moment for pattern and graphic elements ─ or in the case of this painting, for sheer and translucent subjects. Someone on my Instagram referred to it as “analog Photoshop layers”, which hadn’t occurred to me till now; a fun way to look at it nonetheless.

August Drawings, 2021 | Pagan Folk

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As I went to post my latest Wardruna inspired drawing, I realized I missed posting the last two pieces I had done. So here’s me backtracking to a couple of older sketchbook drawings. I’ve gone back to using my Strathmore Tan Drawing Sketchbook, and I would say after using it for this long it’s the only sketchbook I’ve gone back to over and over again (sadly some of my regular sketchbooks are collecting dust). Many artists, myself included, love the amount of depth you can easily create on toned paper. You already have a working middle ground, so pushing the shadows and highlights comes easier and results in better depth in the overall drawing.

WARDRUNA ‘Lyfjaberg’, graphite and white colour-pencil on paper.

The Appeal of Pagan Folk

I’m using the term ‘pagan folk’, but sometimes placing specific genres on a musician or band can be a bit vague. ‘Faroese singer-songwriter’ comes up for a singer like Eivør Pálsdóttir or ‘alternative Nordic pop’ for Aurora or Kalandra. The band Heilung describes their own music as “amplified history”. Where as a band like Faun from Germany, identifiable with their medieval themes, gets labelled pagan folk as well. All to say, lots of genres being thrown out there to the point that I don’t know how to package any of these musicians into one specific label.

The desire to be closer to nature, live more rural, and escape from the general madness of our concrete jungles is no longer reserved to a small population. It’s also something being translated more and more into different art forms including music. Inspiration can be found in many forms different from your practice; photography, film, etc, but mine has overwhelming been through music and literature. I can easily get lost in the rhythms and voice of a singer like Einar and feel transported.

“I think many people who don’t go to church or other religious ceremonies,
I think they miss that solemn, holy place.
…
One of the goals with Wardruna concert is to actually create that space.
To create that serious space, moment, where you can just get lost into the music.
…
It’s about communication, back and forth.
About acknowledging things that are bigger than yourself. Remembering nature,
that we are part of it, etc.”

-Einar Selvik with Iron Realm Productions at Midgardsblot 2016.
WARDRUNA ‘Kvitravn’, graphite & white colour pencil on paper.

The drawings for Kvitravn; the one above and the one with the white raven featuring Lindy-Fay Hella, are both inspired by Wardruna‘s latest album and the visuals from their respective music videos which you can find on Youtube.

Soul Collector | Watercolour Painting

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Testing New Brushes

I’ve been meaning to get some new watercolour brushes, as the ones I’ve been using (although having served well for years) are fraying and/or have rogue hairs going in one direction. There are definitely a wide range of brushes out there (which was a tad overwhelming), but after watching some reviews by other artists on Youtube I settled for trying out the Princeton Neptune range. I went for the Round Synthetic Squirrel in 0, 6, & 12 (as they are the sizes I use the most) of the 4750 Series. I’m loving them so far, as the handles in particular feel more comfortable than my standard ones from Deserres or Curry’s.

Preliminary Drawings

I started out with my drawing on tracing paper, eventually transferring the finished product with a graphite backing and tracing all the lines and details. I was sharing this thought on Instagram as well but, does anyone else hate ‘transfer’ days as much as I do?! Recently I’ve been laying some scrap paper as masking (as you see on the right side), just so I have less graphite residue to erase off of my watercolour paper when I’m done transferring.

The finished drawing ready for transfer.

There’s no better feeling than finally getting to put pigment to paper.

You always feel ambitious with the thought of filling a piece with knotwork, until the realization sets in of having to trace said knotwork for a second time accurately. I cheated a bit with this piece as you’ll notice with my preliminary drawing as I drew in only one side; the other side was cheekily transferred by doing a mirror/flip transfer of the paper. I also decided to incorporate some cute little Robins as well; going on themes of death and souls (Robins said to visit people in grief and mourning) for this painting.

Soul Collector, watercolours, 8.5×11″, 2021

Sketchbook, May 2021

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Revisiting Norse and Celtic knotwork; they’re differences and similarities are always so interesting. On that note, trying to to make life-drawing a little more interesting this week by incorporating themes from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
graphite on paper | Strathmore 400 Series Sketchbook

Dusk | Watercolour Painting

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Dusk, watercolours on paper, 6.5×10″, 2021.

a closer look.

As usual I started with a drawing on tracing paper, although you’ll notice I didn’t add the flowers. Sometimes with more simpler design details, I’ll go in directly to the watercolour paper. The drawing isn’t really meant to be ‘finished’, just the line-work (the simpler the better) so I can do a graphite-transfer onto the paper. I’ve also stopped printing my line-art/drawing, as I used to for transferring drawings. Personally, I haven’t been finding the need to waste more paper; a sharp pencil over the tracing paper drawing works fine. I’ll usually scan the drawing before I get started on tracing with graphite, so as to preserve all the lines I originally had for reference.

It’s often too hard for me to capture the transferred drawing on my watercolour paper. I’ve usually erased quite a bit of the graphite so it’s barely visible when I lay down paint.

washes and paint | work in progress.

July Painting – VENTRESS

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The Switch

I’ve made the switch to hot-press paper. Having conversations with other artists and looking at their process, it was time to switch over and give this paper a try. I think I’ll always prefer cold-press; the texture and depth of colours you can achieve is much more satisfactory, but alas the scanning results in my opinion are rarely so for displaying work online (especially for more illustrative pieces).

Stock piling and clutter in both art and life is not something I’m keen on. Something I’ve had to reconsider during this pandemic. Luckily I had enough supplies until shops opened up again, but what I didn’t have on hand was hot-press paper. A month back, the only shop that had any in stock here in Toronto was Deserres. 4-5 ‘misroutes’ with Canpar, emails & phone-calls back and forth with both companies, and I finally had my paper arrive in a bent cardboard box. …I don’t know if I was more surprised at having received my shipment at all, or that the paper had somehow survived with minimal damage. Yay to Canadian postal service.

Ventress, watercolours & acrylics on 11×15″ paper, 2020

I chose to test out Fabriano’s Artistico Hot-Press Watercolour Paper, and after success with this one I’m eager to try out Arches‘ (pricier) paper as well. I had little to no warp; although I’m suspicious of my 3M masking tape playing a part as well. I don’t put down a lot of heavy wet washes either, so I can’t say what the result would be for those of you who like to do so.

Achieving some ‘glowy’ eyes with acrylic paints.

I wanted to soften Asajj’s look by giving her hair again (drawing on the flashbacks of her lavender hair as a child), as well as changing her usual Sith attire to more of a civilian one. Taking liberties from the original design, I played around with additional Sith corruption marks and tried to include references to her Dathomirian heritage ─ beaded necklaces and elements of witchcraft & necromancy. This was a fun little side project to work on, although personally it’s always nerve-raking to mess around with original visions of any series.

Process.

3rd time’s a charm; various attempts of re-imagining Ventress.
The final drawing on tracing paper.

A Slow May

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Although my head’s buzzing with ideas at the moment, this month has been rather slower than I would have liked. I had been struggling with the usual artist block, which returning meant too many ideas all at once. In hopes of improving whilst simultaneously creating new artwork, I’ve decided to do some mini drawings.

Sight, markers/microns on paper, 6×8″, 2020