Tutorial: The Waterbrush

Kids, let me let you in on a little secret to art-on-the-go: the almighty waterbrush. I take one of these babies with me everywhere I go that I might be doing some sketching - it makes watercoloring a snap on the go.

All you need for watercoloring on the go is a waterbrush, watercolor pencils of your choice (I use Derwent Inktense pencils, which are insanely intensely colorful), and a watercolor block of your choice. (I use Fluid watercolor blocks).

The waterbrush screws apart at the base of the brush.

Gently squeezing the bottom part, stick it vertically under a waterspout, filling it up with water. Once it is all full, just screw it back together and you are ready to go.

Using your Inktense or other watercolor pencil, draw yourself a little design, sketch, whathaveyou.

Give the base of the brush a squeeze to get the water flowing into the brush bristles.

Then just apply a wash over your design, spreading out the color of your pencil. If you draw a light sketch it will usually spread farther. I did a pretty heavy outline, so it didn't spread too far.

If you draw over the sketch while it's still drying, the pencil color will usually be more vibrant, and darker. Feel free to draw and wash away to your heart's content.

And voila! You're all done. Wasn't that easy, fun, and transportable? You can take it anywhere. These babies are all I took to Ireland and Paris with me:

Iced Tea

Well kids, I have a new obsession, and it is called iced tea. It's like juice with no calories! It doesn't make you feel all hot and sweaty like hot drinks do! It is amazingly refreshing and delicious! So I thought I'd take a page out o' Kelsey's book and show y'all how I make it.
All you need is 6 bags of tea, a measuring cup, a mason jar, and a pitcher for your finished tea.
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, and pour the hot water over the six tea bags after you've placed them in a mason jar.
Let the tea steep for 4-8 minutes. I usually go for about 6, maybe 8 if I want it really strong.
Remove the tea bags. You now have tea concentrate! Mmmmm boy, doesn't that smell amazing? Now all you have to do is let it cool to room temperature, but don't put it in the freezer, because I hear that makes it taste bitter. Who knew, right?
Pour the concentrate into your pitcher once it's gotten to room temperature, add about 4 cups of cool water, and stick it all in the fridge for a while.
Once it's nice and cold, pour and enjoy. Perhaps with the book you're reading right now. Mmm, so delicious. I'm a bit ashamed to say I go through about a whole pitcher every day of this stuff. Wow, man.

Antiquing Paper: A Tutorial

Hiya everyone! So I'm working on a little project that requires some old-timey looking paper, so I thought I'd whip up a little tutorial for two simple ways to antique some paper! First and foremost, I am pretty sure there are other ways to do this. There are dozens of tutorials on the internet, just use a little google-fu if you want other options. This is just a quick tute on my two favorite (and suuuper easy) ways to do it. So anyway, let's get started! Things You Will Need: Paper (I used some printmaking paper - it might be Stonehenge or Rives, but almost any paper will work.), Tape (artist's tape or low-tack blue tape will work), Watercolors, Dr. Ph Martin's Concentrated Watercolors, Brushes, and Walnut Ink. Start by taping your paper down on all edges. This is important to minimize wrinkling, especially if you are going to be using paper that isn't as heavy as printmaking or watercolor paper. I usually tape my papers to whatever I have lying around - in this case, it was the back of a sketchbook.

Method One: Watercolor

First, get your paper as wet as possible. I mean soak it with water. Then take your watercolor and cover the whole surface of the paper with it. YEOW, that is yellow. Time for some emergency texturizing/de-yellowfying: Dab away with a paper towel. This will not only calm down the saturation of the color, but it will add that awesome texture that makes it look more vintage! Now take a darker color, like burnt sienna, and, loading your brush with a lot of the color and a lot of water, hold it over the paper and flick it sharply with your index finger. This creates a rad splatter pattern! I didn't worry about getting it on both sheets of paper, since I was going for antiquey anyway. Bam! (We're working on the left one - ignore the right one for now. We'll get there.) Check out that rad texture. Dang, that is awesome. Pat yourself on the back. But, yknow, it's still really bright for a supposed-vintage piece of paper, isn't it? That's where Dr. Ph Martin comes in. Now that is what I'm talking about. Take the dropper in the bottle, drip a few drops of concentrated watercolor onto your paper, and then using a brush with a lot of water, spread it around. If you get too much on there, feel free to take a paper towel and soak up a little of the excess. Ba-bam! (On the left.) Now that is money. Oh, what's that? You want to learn how to do the one on the right already? Alright, let's do it.

Method Two: Walnut Ink

This method is even simpler than the other one. To begin, do what you did before: get your paper nice and wet, then lay out a wash of walnut ink. Feel free to let it drip, and don't worry about getting an even wash: the more imperfect, the more perfect it is! Use the ol' flick trick a few more times, too. And here we are already! If you want a little more texture, you can drip a few drops of water all over the paper, like I did: I might have overdone it a bit. The beauty of watercolor/ walnut ink/ all of the above is that you can keep adding to your piece and keep taking away as much as you want. And that, friends, is all there is to it. Two ways to antique paper very speedily. Have fun! Write some historical letters! Do some botanical sketches! Print on it! So many possibilities. As for me, this paper is going to become some Latin labels for a little project I'm working on. Want a sneak preview? Here you go: Aww yeah.

Tutorial: Watercolor Sketch

So I was doing some watercolor sketches of whale skulls today, and I thought maybe you all would like to see a quick little step-by-step of how I do them? This technique (If you can call it that) is super messy and fast - perfect for if you're on the fly or traveling or just don't feel like committing too much time to a piece but want to play with some color.

So first you start with a sketch. I did mine in 3B pencil last night while waiting for something to load or something. It's a sperm whale skull! Hence the teeth on the lower jaw.

Then I did a light wash of yellow ochre and burnt umber. I used this freebie sumi brush but it sucked.

Another, slightly darker wash over the darker areas. Switched to a better brush this time.

Then I decided that this baby needed a background, so I mixed some burnt umber with some red and washed away.

Then did the darkest darks on the skull. I didn't have a reference picture, so who knows if the shadowing is accurate or not.

Blend out the darkest darks. Dang, this sketch is wet!

Another layer of darkest darks.

Blend the darks out again.
And there you have it! One Sperm Whale skull watercolor sketch done. Took about 10 minutes total, and most of that was drying time. Watercolors are so fun to mess around with and experiment with! Hope everyone enjoyed this dumb little tutorial! Bye for now.