When I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in London earlier this summer, I really enjoyed the display of women’s fashion through the centuries. I especially enjoyed looking at all the detailing and hand work on the Victorian dresses. I snapped some photos that day in the museum and later sketched some of the dresses, shoes, and accessories on two pages in my travel journal.
The drawings were done while I was in the Cotswolds, but I didn’t have a chance to paint them until after the workshop was over. On my flight home from Heathrow, I miraculously ended up with an empty seat next to me in the main cabin, so I had a little breathing room and felt comfortable taking out my sketch kit.
I had my Art Toolkit palette, a water brush, and more than seven empty hours stretching ahead of me. What better way to pass the time than painting some of the unfinished sketches I had drawn during the previous three weeks?
It was so nice to have the time and space to paint during the flight home. With a movie playing on the seat back screen in front of me, and a paint brush in my hand, I was in my own little world flying across the Atlantic.
After I got home and took a second look at the sketch, I thought it would benefit from having some sort of connector tying the separate images together.
I played around with lines and boxes of color using an overlay of Dura-Lar Wet Media Film and finally decided to use a wide rectangular shape that would go behind the clothing. But instead of using a solid color box, I would paint a pattern of horizontal yellow stripes.
I marked off the shape of the box using 1/4″ painter’s tape then laid the SketchLiner Stencil over the area. I carefully marked the lines with a mechanical pencil, placing them so that I could paint between the pencil lines rather than on top of them. That way I wouldn’t have non-erasable pencil lines showing under my painted lines.
I mixed up a big puddle of yellow paint, enough to paint the entire pattern, and used a size 6 round brush to freehand paint yellow lines between the pencil lines.
After all the lines had been painted and everything was dry, I removed the tape, erased the pencil lines, and added my title lettering (with a Staedtler Triplus Fineliner).
The striped box added some pizzazz to the page and helped to tie the outfits together. The Everyday Artist SketchLiner Stencil made the process of painting the lines so much easier than if I had had to mark lines and spaces using a ruler. So keep this handy tool in mind the next time you need to draw a series of parallel lines on a sketch.
In my next post, I’ll start sharing my Cotswold sketches. See you soon!
5 Comments
I love the yellow stripes on your sketch. Handy tool you have there.. 😉. Perfect way to spend a long flight home.
❤️ Beverlee
It’s rare that I ever have an empty seat next to me. It’s so nice when it happens though – what a luxury!
Hi Leslie! What a wonderful surprise…you and your Mamma coming to visit!
I love your paintings of the dresses! Great pass time on a long flight!!! I see that you are using a water pen. How do you like using it? I have one, but have only worked with it once. I guess that I am just so used to holding the regular brush. That would make a great lesson…using the water pen. Thank you so much for stopping by and having these wonderful productions of your work! You are an inspiration!
Stop by anytime!! Most Sincerely, Nancy Hoffman
We really enjoyed seeing you, Nancy. You have such a great workspace, with so many projects underway. I loved looking over your Tuscany journal from our 2015 trip. Such good memories!
The water brush is not my favorite tool but it does come in handy when I’m on the go. There’s a learning curve to using it and figuring out how to handle the flow of water that oozes out of the brush. It just takes practice, and the more I use it, the more comfortable I’ve become with it.
I always have a paper towel available to squeeze out clean water when I want to change colors. Squeeze the brush into the paper towel and blot off the paint. That’s how you rinse the water brush when you don’t have a cup of water to dip into.
You can’t do large washes with it – it’s better for smaller work in a sketchbook. They do make a 1/2″ flat water brush, though, that works pretty well for painting larger areas.
When you want to mix up a puddle of paint on your palette, just squeeze some water from the brush onto your mixing area and then dip into your paint well to get some pigment to mix with the puddle.
You should play around with it and see what you think. But don’t give up after one go – it takes awhile to get the hang of it.
I love the yellow lines as a ‘connector’…and another nice way to use that tool!!