Cushions in Colour

I drew these cushions in pen and ink at Barbara’s brother’s the other day but left the colouring for later, to give me some practice with the Clip Studio Paint watercolor brush tool, in this case set to opacity watercolor. As usual, the pen layer stays on top, in crisp monochrome.

In keeping with my current interest in comics, I’ve included a hand-drawn border. Any detail in a comic should help to tell the story, so I tried to bring out the character of these cushions, as if they were set dressing in a scene.

As characters, I’d say these cushions are laid back but a little rumpled and worn at the seams. Perhaps they’re the louche, laid back, Lotharios of the cushion world, slouching suspiciously in the corner as they hatch their next scheme.

Or perhaps they’re just ordinary cushions but guilty of a bit of overacting.

Foggy Morning

After my weekend watercolour workshop, it’s hardly surprising that Monday morning starts with me seeing potential subjects as the sun melts away the fog. But we’re setting out with places to go and people to see, so I’m sketching indoors again today.

The cushions provide me with a landscape in miniature.

Through  the top of a window I can see the branches of an ash, which is still hanging onto a few of its keys.

I add some crayoned colour to my cushion landscape.

Back to the Sketchbook

Cushions drawn this morning on a visit to Barbara's brother and his wife in my Moleskine travel notebook.
Cushions drawn this morning on a visit to Barbara’s brother and his wife in my Moleskine travel notebook.

It’s soon got around to Burns Night – one month since Christmas day already – and this is only my second post of the new year but I have been busy; for the last month I’ve managed a page a day in my holly green sketchbook. For that I’ve been trying something new by scanning the whole page each day.

I’ve also enjoyed sticking to just one theme, natural history, as it’s got me noticing things that I would have missed if I hadn’t set myself the task of finding something fresh, however trivial, to draw and write about each day.

New Theme

In contrast to the simplicity of that page a day approach I decided to go for a different look for this Wild Yorkshire blog, making it less of a drawing journal and more of a newsletter for my other projects, such as the somewhat neglected www.wildyorkshire.co.uk nature diary website and my even more neglected www.willowisland.co.uk, which includes my walks booklets, guide books and published sketchbooks.

WordPress 2014 theme.
WordPress 2014 theme.

I’ve decided to go for a new theme for the new year, one which makes navigation a bit more obvious, rather than relegating it to the bottom of a long page. The latest WordPress standard theme, called 2014, seemed a good one to go for.

 

The same page using the Aldus theme designed by Fränk Klein.
The same page using the Aldus theme designed by Fränk Klein.

Update

25 February; As the 2014 looked a bit black and formal, I’m now trying an airier theme called Mon Cahier, which still includes a column for navigation, hopefully combining what I like about Aldus with the functionality of WordPress 2014.

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Categorized as Art Tagged