Hello, Duckies!!! Its been a busy, busy, busy summer. I returned home to Knoxville last week from Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN, where I assisted the wonderful Costume Designer Devon Painter on a beautiful production of Othello and designed the costumes for a fantastic small musical called The Daly News (I think I put those sketches up before I left, but I can't remember!). I did the Daly News sketches in marker which I hadn't used very much before. I loved how fast they were, but I didn't do very much with them - no real blending or layering - so I though that now that I'm home and have some free-ish time I should work a bit more in the fabulous world of markers. I've had these sketches of The Lion in Winter, one of my favorite plays hanging around since before the start of this blog so I thought, "Hey, why not throw some color on these!"
First things first - I rarely color directly on an original sketch. I get freaked out that I'm going to mess up and have to re-sketch the whole thing. On these I just went for it. I did these sketches on smooth finish 100lb Bristol paper. Its pretty much my favorite paper - very good to draw on, especially with the hard pencils I like to use. The markers seem to work OK on it. It soaks in a little too fast, but, as I've been told by the Marker Master, Bill Black, "They are MARKERS! Treat them like markers - they'll never look like paint!". I'm slowly getting used to the fact that there will be some streaks. If I were to do these again I would do them in a paper with an even smoother finish and possibly some color.
I did quite a bit of layering to grey out the colors. I think that there are three colors of marker alone in the little bit of underskirt, not to mention the pencil on top of the marker. I've very quickly learned that the french greys are my favorite things ever. I'd love to get the full set - I've only got 20%, 40%, and 60%. Brick Beige is also amazing for skin tone - I need to get a few more skin bases though...not everyone is Brick Beige colored!
I like the sketch a lot. When I did them I was focusing on faces and drapery more than anything else - some of them are a bit out of proportion - especially some of the men you'll see later. I'll try to post them in order that I did them so you can see the progression of my marker journey. Its a pretty small show - only 7 characters, so I'll be done by next week and then see what I should do next...maybe color a different show. I'd like to get pretty comfortable with markers...while some frown on them, they are so easy and fast to use!
I'm enjoying some of that technical marker talk... must get some french greys and Brick Beige to try. I've got a beginning collection of Copic markers b/c that's what the anime people use. I've got a few Prismacolor, but I'm still uncomfortable using markers. Then I see how our often-used set designer uses them, and I really throw my hands up and give it up for a while. Is Bill Black the one that wrote that book on marker illustration? It's the only resource I've seen on learning to use them, but of course I haven't gotten around to buying it yet. If he gives workshops, that would be even better. I can tell the faces and hands got a lot of attention - the coloring looks really good, and not like they got too much attention and became overworked. That's the least favorite part of marker work for me. Of course there's always the hope that if I just buy the right marker...... Oh yeah, and practice.
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