eller

No worries, this nice black-and-red locomotive is not in use anymore (I mean, you never know in Northern Germany, but... this is kind of old-fashioned even by local standards XD), it just... stands there as some kind of historical monument thingy. Also, nope, I can't draw technology, especially not when I have to be fast (there was nowhere to sit where I was sketching, and bright sunlight I was trying to avoid; indeed, I only did the black brush pen drawing there but had to do most of the shading and highlights later, at home) and I'm not doing a perspective sketch first. Flowers are easier - when you get a curve or the proportions slightly wrong, that's just nature, but you can't cheat like that with tech! XD I simplified quite a bit, too - only drew the largest shapes but left the smaller stuff out, though I don't doubt it's crucial for actually operating this machine. Hey, this is not supposed to be a technical blueprint... XD But, yeah, still having fun with that lovely chess sketchbook!



Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a red page again - I'm really enjoying this bright red paper!
- Markers: Faber Castell Pitt big brush in Black and Cold Grey III (they don't sell the latter anymore, which is tragic); Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen brush in White (which SUCKS; the other brush pens from this line are all awesome but the white one is super transparent and does not cover anything - I deliberately only used it for shading here, which is why I needed two different white pens)
- Acrylic pen: Flysea Acrylic Painter Extra Fine in white (which you already know I love; despite being super-cheap it's my favorite white acrylic pen)

Another fast sketch in the new chess sketchbook from antaresnox! This morning, I was walking when I saw this very large flower growing from a crack in the asphalt! (I kind of regret not getting that crack into the picture, but the plant was too large to draw the whole thing while getting any level of detail.) Different pens this time: the very professional (LOL) art technique is called "grab some pens from the bottom of your bag". I don't use markers very often but I really enjoy these ones: they each have two sides with shades of the same color, one dark and one light, which makes shading and blending easy.

In case you were wondering: yes, of course I occasionally sketch on white paper, too! You know I'm mainly whining about the constant lack of sketchbooks with toned paper that is not brown or grey, but that's not because I dislike white paper. It's just that I can walk into any art supply store (and even most stationery shops) and get a very nice sketchbook with white paper (not as nice as a handmade one, obviously, but at least one I can use); no whining needed. I really like having a book with different paper colors for different occasions!

This time, I actually managed to destroy the paper: it takes acrylic pens fine, it takes the markers themselves fine as well, but the spots where I used the white Posca to draw highlights over the marker-colored areas kind of dissolved. Interesting! XD (No matter how nice the paper, there's always some way to damage it, and I usually find it very quickly. LOL)



Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a white page this time
- Copic Multiliner, black, 1.0
- Markers: Kuretake ZIG Brushables in spring green and hyacinth
- Acrylic pen: Uni Posca PC-5M in white

Another page filled in the sketchbook from antaresnox. I'm trying to draw something fast every day. The forsythia is in front of the house... And, of course, rhododendron is everywhere.



It's kind of fascinating: rhododendron is an invasive plant, and when I was a kid, people started to plant it in their gardens deliberately "because the bugs don't eat it". This used to be true, except, oh wait, these days they do... I suppose we're seeing some evolution in progress. XD

This is an ATC swap game again: Up-Quark sent me an envelope with 15 different craft supplies, and I have to use them on ATCs.

( Here's a picture of the art supplies. )

My first ATC is IN SPACE, and it's a shaker ATC again, because hey, why not?

I used the following eight materials:
- space washi tape (background of the large window)
- die-cut (colored in; can be shaken in the large window)
- narrow striped washi tape (in the small window, where the lady is working, as background)
- Wire (unfortunately not clearly visible on the scan, but also in the small window; here's a detail photo https://ibb.co/p1ZsDvh in case you're interested)
- white textured transparent paper (the lady's clothes; I colored on it but the texture is intact)
- blue narrow washi tape (the lamp holder on the top right)
- light green transparent paper (the monitors at the top; I drew on it, but the color is still coming through)
- World map/globe motif paper (on the monitor on the left edge; I put shading on it)

As I mentioned a few days ago, I drew ATC outlines for Atlicedrawsstuff to color... And she was super fast! (She found someone to swap the card with already, too.)



Atlice used Ohuhu markers (alcohol-based), colored pencils, and gel pen on my fineliner drawing. :) I really love the colors she chose!

This is Mirainn, an alchemist in the world of Kolthainn. Yes, she wears lab equipment as jewelry - here with scale earrings and hourglass around her neck.

This is a shaker ATC with four windows!

- In the fireplace is glow-in-the-dark glitter in yellow as well as a scroll (cut out of paper) that Mirainn must have just decided to burn.

- On top of the fireplace, a bottle of suspicious liquid is being heated and vapors are billowing up! In it there is glow-in-the-dark glitter in green.

- The bottles on Mirainn's belt are filled with pink glow-in-the-dark glitter.

- And in the background, it's snowing over the mountains! (Transparent glow-in-the-dark glitter.) A second raven is there too - cut out of paper, even though it doesn't shake so well.

If you're interested in the process of making it..
( A full step-by-step can be found behind the cut. )

And here is the finished artwork!

I have not much time right now (posting this in a short break, ahaha), so here are just a few botanical sketches from the last few days.

The first two sketches are from Sunday, when I managed to fill two sketchbook pages.









The last one is the Kalanchoe in my office. It's, of course, bright yellow. :) There is an orange Kalanchoe as well, but it's in someone else's office.

For your amusement: a very fast, very messy sketch made during lunch break at work. I was showing someone how to draw geometric shapes.



No, I realize what this looks like, but we are not hopelessly lazy. XD (I was actually quite productive today, entirely non-artistically speaking.) We are dealing with crystals, so this was quite work-related for a lunch break activity. These are very obviously not crystals, but when it comes to "how to draw a cube" and stuff, well, these were the simplest geometric objects available.

Drawn (okay, okay, scribbled) with fineliners (two sizes) and markers (light brown, dark brown, warm grey and white) in a sketchbook with grey paper.

Also: the chocolates were excellent.

Today, I have a step-by-step for you, so you can laugh at admire my messy loose coloration style! :)

It's for the "Random Material" ATC swap, where participants received an art box with random and, let's face it, pretty crappy art supplies and had to do something with the stuff they received. This is not supposed to be an advertisement for the material I used here: it's - literally - randomly chosen stuff that's neither exceptionally great nor matching nor anything, really. Which, of course, is the challenge of this game!



When I don't know what to draw, mermaids are one of my default themes. Very fast fineliner drawing.



First layer of the coloration was done with alcohol-based markers:
Twinmarker BG1 Blue Grey
Winsor&Newton promarker brush in Almond
Ohuhu YR10 Brun
Ohuhu PB10 Turquoise Green Light
Ohuhu YR34 Yellow

I apologize to anyone who actually likes markers. This is bad and I know it. Okay, partially it's the fault of the paper - you're not supposed to use these markers on watercolor paper - but also, it's painfully obvious that I simply can't use markers. I can't even tell whether the brands I received are good or bad. They're wasted on me either way.



The next layer is with watercolor:
Arts Arch Brilliant Yellow
Arts Arch Vermilion
Apolo Arte Violeta Intenso
Daler Rowney Aquafine Transparent Turquoise
Jaxon Brilliant Green

Fortunately, at least with the watercolors, I know what I'm doing! XD This is starting to look like a perfectly normal intermediate coloration stage.

Also, I have Opinions on the colors that were in my art box. The Daler Rowney paint is great, and it's a PB16 (!), which is a pretty rare pigment and very lightfast, so that's one I'm super happy with. The Apolo Arte is a PV23, which is one of my standard pigments anyway, and the manufacturer, as far as I can tell, didn't do anything wrong with it: it's strongly pigmented and I'll definitely keep using it. Yay! The Jaxon Brilliant Green is a PG7, and wow, this is the first time I have to consider a PG7 a crushing failure: it's so weakly pigmented it's basically just greenish slime. And PG7 isn't even an expensive pigment, so, there's no excuse! The Arts Arch colors are questionable because they don't have any pigment information. Also, the yellow handles okayish, but the red is CRAP. I assume this is the super-cheap stuff. Whatever...



I also had some colored pencils in my box and tried them out!

Then a few crayons came into play:
Castle Arts Pasteltint Juniper Lime
Castle Arts Soft Touch Flesh
Stabilo aquacolor in a dark blue
Cretacolor AquaGraph White

I rarely work with pencils, so, no detail work here. Just some unification of the color areas. :) Also, I'm no expert, but these pencils are fine as far as I can tell. I especially liked the Castle Arts pencils which gave off a very rich, smooth color layer. The white AquaGraph was a bit of a disappointment, though: virtually invisible, just a barely noticeable lightening of the color below.




Then cameFlySea Acrylic Markers in white, black, yellow, red, and light green.

Unfortunately, they also don't come with pigment or lightfastness information, so I'll have to conduct my own tests - but I have to say, I'm very happy with how these markers handle. The colors are very opaque and the hard plastic tip is wonderful for detail work.



And, of course, I added some white sparkle. Every picture needs some sparkle! XD

The sparkle didn't end up as dots but rather... strings?!?... because the paint is somewhat slimy. It's super weird. Anyway, I tried to use this as an effect, so I paid attention to the direction in which the strings were going. I suppose if you want that kind of directionality, this paint is actually quite useful, but, let's face it: it's not very good white paint.



And this is a proper scan of the finished ATC. :)