After working in grays and black for so long, color feels like a breath of fresh air.

After much searching on amazon, I found the set we use in class:

Our instructor showed us the powered color that her master used to use. They are brilliant, vivid colors. Half are from rocks that have been grounded into dust and half are organic –but almost all of them are poisonous. Which makes sense, all the brightest colors in nature usually warn predators of poison.

Because half the colors are minerals and half are organic, if you see ancient paintings, half the colors will still be bright and vivid (the minerals) and half the colors will be fading away (the organic colors).

Another interesting not about these powdered colors is that since they are nothing but dust, they need to be mixed with a type of glue to get them to hold together and actually be usable to paint.

(more…)

After exhibiting at a few cons, I’ve got a bit of a routine that I thought would be nice to share with any other aspiring artists out there.

I’m swamped with work to do, so I’m going to type this fast, my apologies for typos, etc. (actually, if you could point out typos by leaving comments I’d be really grateful, thanks.)

Con checklist (things to bring)

• Comics: I pack my comics in a box and then drop that box into carry-on suitcase with wheels. The first time I lugged all my stock to the show (5 comics x 100 issues each) and ended up lugging most of them back home after the show was over. This last time (4th time to a con) I packed light. I had 9 comics and didn’t bring more than 30 copies of each, in some cases, 20 copies (which I sold out by the end of the second day).
• Prints: prints seem to be a pretty good business model, much better than my print on demand comics (that rarely cover the cost of the very table I’m selling them from).
• Business Cards: if someone doesn’t buy your stuff, at least get a business card in their hand. Don’t have cards? try VistaPrint.com they’re cheep, fast and high quality… you just have to click carefully for the last step of the order where they ask you “hey, do you want us to throw in some extra junk?”
• Extras: every con has it’s own mood and tone. Wondercon is all about comics and prints while APE is all about Prints and Odd/Original things like buttons, postcards, stamps, or hats (you know, “alternative press”).
• Food & Drink: if you don’t want to get ripped off by convention prices, pack a lunch and something to drink. Remember napkins or something too.
• Clothing: Wondercon cranks the A/C waaay up and APE was a sauna. So keep that in mind. Make sure you can add or remove a sweater or something. (at Wondercon, I even brought chap stick and was thankful I did.)
• Shoes: You may be standing on cement all day… wear comfy shoes.
• Stands: books stands, business card stands, etc.
• box tape and scissors: You never know. I always bring this and I always find a use for it. Making signs, keeping things in place, etc.
• Paper or Index cards: for making little signs with
• Sharpie: for making signs and signing comics with
• Camera: get a picture of your fans and your booth! (and make sure your batteries are charged!… I made that mistake this time…)
• Pack Light: I know I just listed off a bunch of stuff, but remember, you have to carry all that crap from the car to the booth/table.

Con checklist (things to do)

• Pack the day before: you’re going to be rushing around the next day, so just do yourself a favor and put all that stuff to bed before you go to sleep.
• Parking: the best way to loose any profit you might make is by getting price gouged on convention parking. You may be used to paying $15 for hanging around a Con for 2 hours… but when you are there from open to close, the price goes up FAST! Try to be smart. If you can get a friend to drop you off at the front door with all your stuff and then park farther away (or maybe your wife doesn’t want to go to the show at all, which is perfect). DON’T expect to leave your car unattended out front while you drop off your stuff, odds are the security guards won’t let you. I’ve gotten in the habit of getting dropped off the first day and then taking the train/bus to the event on the following days. Then I arrange for someone to pick me and my stuff up on the last day.
• Price Exhibitor Badges: just take a look at the price of a 3 day pass to the show, vs the price of a full blown Exhibitor pass. If you’re going to have a friend help work the booth, you probably want the cheaper of the two. The only real difference is getting into the show an hour early or not.
• Get a better business model than me.: seriously, I lose money when I sell comics at a convention, lots of money. My print on demand comics are like $4 each, so I have to sell them for $5. While the big guys pay $0.66 to print a copy and sell them for $3 (or sometimes $5!). Give it some thought. I’m going to try some large prints at the next show (as in, the kind of print you frame and hang on the wall.) They cost less to make and will probably be a better business model then the print on demand comics. (in short, don’t quick your day job until you figure out how to walk away from a convention with thousands of dollars in your pocket… oh, and when you figure that out, tell me how you did it :)
• Be honest with your friends: You friends will come to see you at the Con and will want to chat. That’s cool, just make sure they know not to block your table. Have them stand a little to the side (or invite them behind the table) so people can still get to your table and possibly buy your stuff.
• Deflect Leaches: You’ll get that guy who comes up and stands in front of your table, blocking it off from everyone else, and then just stand there and reads every page of every one of your comics. Then says “You’re stuff is great!” and walks away. If you’d like him to stand a little to the side and read, just tell him. If you want him to move on, just tell him the price of the comic he’s holding and put your hand out like you expect money right now. He’ll most likely panic and run off, or panic and pay you.
• Make Friends: even if you’re not good at talking to people, introduce yourself to the exhibitors around you. You’ll probably see them again at other conventions and you’ll probably be asking them to watch your stuff when you run to the rest room.
• Start a Tradition: This may sound silly, but you’ll appreciate it years later. For example, I take the business cards of people around me and stick them in my badge holder… after the show, I throw all my badges in the same drawer, not in the trash. Some times it’s cool to got through them, and with the business cards in the badge holder, you’ll remember all the funny stories when you show them to others. (I still have a badge from E3 when I was working at Namco that I had the guys from penny-arcade.com sign… good times.)

Best of luck to you at the show!

I don’t really like lugging around a bag just to have my sketchbook and pencil box with me. Especially since I find that if I do bring it along, I don’t always get a chance to sketch and if I don’t bring it along I often end up sitting somewhere bored and wish I had my sketchbook. Plus the packing and unpacking of stuff makes it pretty inconvenient on a daily bases.

Lately, I’ve been keeping a stack of maybe 10 index-cards in my jacket pocket at all times. I clipped them together with a couple of binder clips so they don’t get messed up in my pocket (keeps edges from getting messed up and also keeps them from rubbing against each other and smearing the sketches). However it turns out having them clipped together also makes it really easy to draw on the top card in the stack while standing up. So I can be standing in line somewhere and just pull the cards out of my pocket, and start sketching. Then jam them back in my pocket when I’ve got to get moving again.

As a result, I always have them with me and I’ve been doodling more, which is always good.

The second half of that equation are the pens and pencils I bring with me. I recently discovered “snack bags” in the grocery store.
For years, they only had “sandwich bags”, but now you can find “snack bags,” which are half the size. They’re the perfect size for stashing a few pens and putting them in your pocket.

The last ingredients are the caps for the pencils. I originally started capping my pencils because I got tired of them putting holes in my pockets or stabbing me in the hand when I reached into my pocket. I find pen caps are too big, but my fiance’s eyeliner caps are nearly perfect. I just slipped in a small piece of paper to make sure they’re nice and snug.

Hope these tricks help you sketch on the go!

I saw this post on the DrawingBoard.org

Renaissance Style Drawing (Sanguine) — A Tutorial (images above are from here)

“If you have read books on Renaissance-era drawing, you may have noticed the media listed as sanguine. Sanguine is a natural mineral, hematite, or basically a rusty rock. They didn’t have Conté crayons or pastel pencils in the 1500s, so this is what they used.”

Edit: the lines and colors blog tracked the author back to KM Scott Moore.

I finally got all the stuff needed to paint at home (even if a lot of it is whatever I had on hand), so I thought I’d give you a quick look at what’s involved.

note: I crowded everything in so I could fit it all in the pictures, but you probably want to spread out a little and leave some blank space around your paper so you’re not knocking your brush into other things while you’re trying to paint.

also note: I’m left handed, so odds are, your setup will have all the brushes and ink on the other side of the paper.

Here’s a little more detail:

• Bamboo Brush Wrap:happened to be there so I labeled it… really, it’s just taking up table space.
• Roll of Paper: always good. Note, to get off some nice sections to paint on, fold the paper, make a crease, then run a wet brush down the fold, and then rip it. Try to keep the wet area as skinny as possible (she how jagged my paper is on the right side? I used too much water.)
• Clean Water: try to keep one of your rinse containers clean. This is the water I was using to tear the paper. I’m using a pasta jar.
• Dirty Water: as in, rinse water. I’m using a coffee can, but I’m not sure if it will rust or not, so I’ll probably switch to another jar.
• Light & Dark Gray: I’m using single serving yogurt containers.
• Ink: it’s empty in the picture, but that’s where it would be.
• Brush Rest: there are fancy brush rests, but I’m just using the lid to the coffee can. Basically, the tips are wet and it’s nice to keep them off the table a little.
• Shape Tip: I just wanted to point out that there is a spot on the lid where I’ve been shaping the tip when it’s loaded with ink. You could also use another container or something, but basically, you want an alternative to the dabbing cloth. The cloth will suck ink out of the brush and make it dry as you’re shaping the tip, the plastic lid won’t.
• Dab Cloth: I found a fat stack of washcloths on sale for $2, so I grabbed them.
• Weights: these serve two purposes: keep the rolled up paper flat and keep the paper still so it doesn’t move while you’re in the middle of making a stroke. I grabbed whatever was at arm’s length, which happened to be tea candles and some heavier tea candle holders (in class we literally just use some flat rocks.)
• Felt: the table is covered with some felt cloth. It’s cheap (paid $1 or $2 a yard) and works well.
• Drying: just a reminder, things need somewhere to dry. I let them dry there on the felt for a while before stacking them up or whatever.
• Not Pictured:
  • an eye dropper: if you want to put any ink back in the bottle and your containers aren’t as easy to deal with as my yogurt containers.
  • a masterpiece: look at that terrible bamboo! yuck! :) Yours will be better.

Edit History:

• (2/1/2008): be sure to checkout i-paint’s comment about new brush caps.

We have our own brushes now and it leads to questions about how to care for a brush.

The Glue
First of all, new brushes have glue in the tip to make them look all perfectly straight and beautiful when you buy them. This can also be used to conceal the quality of the brush since it looks great in the store and my act different when you start using it and the glue comes out. So just be cautious about that. Expect glue, but try not to get ripped off.

Soak your new brushes in water for about 10 or 15 minutes to get the glue out or they may act a little strange when you use them. For Example, my hard bristle brush was acting like a soft bristle brush (it didn’t have any spring to it, it would bend and stay bent after each stroke).

Use Gently
I found that I was much to rough when rinsing and dabbing my brushes. You don’t really think about these things when you’re using the community materials in an art class or something, but you start to question more once you spend $20 or more on a brush.

When you rinse your brush in between strokes, DON’T push the brush all the way to the bottom of the container and bend or pound the tip. There’s no reason for it. It’s not getting the brush any cleaner and it’s bending the bristles. I found that pounding the brush also made it difficult to get a perfectly thin straight tip.

Instead, dip the brush in the water, don’t touch the bottom at all, and just swirl it around in a circle. Then, *touch* it to the side of the container a few times –don’t *press* it to the side of the contain. After that go directly to your dabbing cloth. Again, don’t press, bend, or pound the tip into the cloth. Instead hold the brush horizontally and touch the whole side of the tip to the cloth. You can also drag it a little and help all the bristles point in the correct direction. Rotate the brush between your fingers and do it again.

When you’re done, you’ll notice that the brush tip is pretty dry, as well as nice and narrow with a pretty nice, if not perfect, tip.

The same goes with your pallet, no need to be rough or over flex the brush.

Make it a habit, be gentle on the brush. I’m a big dumb guy, so I find myself pounding the brush into the rinse water like an ape with a stick. I have to really make a conscious effort to be gentle, but BELIEVE IT OR NOT, I find that when I’m rough on the brush I can’t paint because I’m messing up the bristles and I’m unconsciously tensing up. As soon as I make a conscious effort to be gentle on the brush, the brush works better and I can’t help but relax more, and suddenly I’m painting better. That’s my favorite part so far. When you’re doing it right, Chinese Brush Painting is calming and relaxing.

Putting them away
Rinse the brushes gently under some water, then PAT them dry WITH a towel (don’t DAB them dry ON a towel).

You can leave them on a brush rest to air dry, but ultimately you want to either store them in a roll-up or hang them with the tips pointing down. In both cases, the idea is to get the tip to stay nice and straight.

I did a search on amazon, and here are a couple roll-ups like the one I have:

Note, I can’t vouch for those specific brushes because I’ve never used them :)
Also Note: those links go to “Sumi” Brushes. Sumi (or Sumi-e) is a Japanese style of brush painting. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumi-e

Here’s what the stands look like (sorry, couldn’t find any good amazon links)

If you store all your brushes by jamming them into a can or jar, odds are you’re not doing the brushes much good. If the tip is aiming upward, then gravity will effect the bristles and bend them over time. If the tip is at the bottom, then it’s probably bending under the weight of the brush.

So, if you love your brushes, DON’T use anything that looks like this:

Here are notes from a Chinese brush class I’m taking. I’m a total beginner, so I’m going to start with little details I gathered when first touching brush to page.

First thing’s first.
We had 3 types of brushes:
–a hard bristle brush (medium sized)
–a soft bristle brush (medium sized)
–a hard bristle detail brush (small)

All of the brushes are round, none have that flattened or pinched look that you see in a lot of arts & crafts sections of a store.

Like This:

NOT this:

Identifying the difference between a hard bristle brush and a soft bristle brush:
hard bristle is more springy and will return to being straight and pointy after/during the brush stroke. Soft bristle will bend as you touch it to the paper and stay bent after you lift it up.

If you’re making strokes that involve changes in pressure (bamboo leaves, etc) you’ll want to use the hard bristle brush because it will continue to contact the page as you lighten the pressure.

Paper:
There are a million types of paper, but lets just talk about two major categories, for ease of writing, I’ll call them treated and non-treated.
Non-treated paper is just paper, it will absorb the ink and the ink will spread.
Treated paper has a special coating on it to keep the ink from absorbing… it’s like beads of water on a waxed car. You can literally blow beads of ink around on the paper.

We’re starting with the cheaper, non-treated paper.

Paint on the softer side of the paper.

Here are some examples I found on amazon:

So the first thing you notice is that you touch the page and the ink just spreads…

at first this seems like a disaster, but it’s good for making fuzzy stuff, like these doodles.

ink and greys
there’s some history behind inks and how they use ink sticks and grinding stones like these:

HOWEVER we’re using black ink from a bottle, so I’ll only talk about what I’ve used.

These aren’t the exact inks we use, but you get the idea:

The ink is black and the only way to get gray is to dilute it with water. Our instructor uses a simple technique of having 3 containers for holding the “palette” (for lack of a better word). These containers are about the size of those single service puddings or yogurts (in fact, that’s what we use at home). This is what the one from class looks like:

The first container (or well or what-not) just has some black ink in it (don’t fill it up! in the image above, You’d still be able to see the white bottom of one of those side chambers), the other two chambers are about half full of water. We then dip the brush into the ink, then go directly into the 2nd container and swish it around in the water 5 or 6 times, then we go directly to the 3rd container and swish it around in the water once or twice and then clean the brush.

Now we have 1 black, 1 dark gray, and 1 light gray.

So the first step in any session is to mix and test your grays.

Use more ink or more water to adjust the grays to the darkness or lightness you’re looking for (depending on what your painting, etc)

Gradients
The point of these grays is to load up the brush with all three tones and make gradients.

Note: that’s light gray, 2 strokes of dark gray, then black, followed by a poor quality gradient. So DON’T try to make gradients that look like the one above.

The gradient will vary based on the tones of your grays to start with, and then how well you load them into the brush. The first is easy, the second is hard.

When the brush is loaded correctly, you get a nice smooth gradient from light gray to black. But when it’s not loaded correctly, you get more of a banding/rainbow-ish effect.

note: I’m left handed and all stroke started at the bottom and moved toward the top.

on the left we have an “okay” gradient, but not a great gradient. The transition from the black to the dark gray is nice and smooth, but the transition from dark gray to light gray is pretty abrupt.

In the middle, we have an all around bad gradient. It’s mostly light gray and black, and the dark gray is almost non-existent, so there’s a really abrupt transition from light to dark.

On the right we have another bad example. It’s mostly light gray, with a touch of dark gray and it’s too dry and breaks near the top.

The gradient technique (loading the brush)
Now that you know what it can look like, here’s how to do it.
–Clean out the brush and dab it mostly dry.
–dip the brush completely in the light gray.
–dab lightly on dabbing cloth.
–dip the brush half way into the dark gray.
–dab lightly (or dab tip) on dabbing cloth.
–touch the tip of the brush to the black ink.

You’ll notice right away that the final gradient will reflect how much you put on the brush, so if you did way more light gray than dark gray, you’ll get something like that middle example above, while that example on the right has hardly any black on the brush at all.

The gradient technique (using the loaded brush)
When you make the stroke, you hold your brush at a 15 or 30 degree angle compared to the page, touch down and pull upward so the brush makes the widest mark possible.

NOTE: I’m left handed, so my black is on the right side. Odds are you’re right handed, so your gradients will be darker on the left side.

Honestly, it’s a lot of practice just to get your grays the correct tone and then to actually get the brush loaded correctly and make that once nice smooth gradient. Then when you finally get it, you’ll realizes the brush is only good for one stroke and needs to be loaded again, which means there’s no guarantee the next gradient will be good.

Dabbing is key
I didn’t learn this my first day, so I’m making note of it specifically. Since the grays are mostly water, you need to dab them on a dabbing cloth before you make the stroke on the page.

Because the gradients involved putting the whole brush into the light gray, I just assumed the brush was supposed to be really wet all the time. I was wrong. Like everything, it depends on what you intend on doing. In the end, I found I got the best results when the brush was NOT very wet.

How wet is to wet? gray example:
Overly Wet brush: ink really spreads and you can probably make 3 or 4 soppy strokes before it starts to be useful, then you’ll get maybe 2 nice strokes.
Not so wet brush: you’ll get 1 or 2 nice strokes from it, then you should have to clean, and reload with ink.
Dry brush: will not make smooth strokes. Will break a little in the line it leaves behind. Can be very cool for adding texture.

Also realize those examples you just read are with the grays, which are mostly water. The straight black ink acts differently. It’s much silkier and easier to put on the page without it spreading all over the place.

Overall

Embrace it. It seemed scary to me that the ink just spreads all over the place. I thought: how can anyone ever do what they indent on doing!? But eventually you realize the best gradients are the ones where you give the ink and paper enough water to spread together.

The instructor has a very calm, centered demeanor, and tells us that you are only doing half the work, you are only making half of the creation. The ink and the paper will react however they want to. Don’t fight it, embrace it. See what the paper wants to make rather than trying to force it to do what you want it to do.

I’m sure that’s something she says to beginners, but in all honesty, once I stopped fighting it, I really enjoyed it. There’s something Zen and calming about letting the ink and paper have half the creative control. Before long we were just making fuzzy creatures and laughing at how unintentionally cute they were.

also, this bee was a complete accident… I tried to reproduce it but just made a mess. Still, I rather enjoyed the making of this bee the most, while the others felt like I was trying too hard.