Week 3 completed! I must say, I am quite surprised how I have managed to do a sketch every day so far for Boatober! I think it has a lot to do with the fact that my sister is also taking part, and it is fun to see her versions, as well as the community of instagram sketchers that are also participating! It is really lovely seeing the boats pop up in my feed 🙂
It has also been a chance to experiment and try out different techniques. This week, I was inspired to try something Nikki has been doing – pre painting a sketchbook page the day before, and then making the sketch over the top. This is unpredictable, because you make the call on what you pre paint with, before you see the boat prompt! For my first try at this, I went for a bright orange / yellow (Carmen SketchInk), and splashed in a little bit of blue ink (Windsor and Newton Blue India Ink) to mix it up a bit and add some interest.
The boat prompt was a beautiful Steam Paddle boat in a gorgeous body of crisp blue water, with a stunning mountain backdrop. My version of this would have been very different if I had seen the image first: I may have gone with a blue background to tie in with the colour – however, that was not the case, and I was committed to sketching the boat over the top of my pre painted background! I really liked the result – and it had the added bonus of only taking about 5 minutes because I literally just drew the lines in for the boat and mountains!
I tried a similar technique for the fishing boat with the wind turbines in the background, although this time, I saw the photo prompt first, and decided to use my ArtGraf water soluble graphite to tie in with the monochrome scene in the reference photo.
I used my TWSBI Eco pen to sketch the boat and the birds and horizon line, then used a Pentel Brush Pen with grey ink to draw the wind turbines – this gave quite a nice softer, paler effect for the background, in contrast with the harder, darker lines for the boat in the foreground.
I was really pleased with both these images, and I think they are my favourite for the week!
A huge thanks to Doug Jackson for hosting this fab challenge throughout October – do visit him on Instagram and at his website, where he also has some art for sale.
