January 30, 2004

Today's going to be a rare day. I am going to introduce you to one of the most inspiring journal artists in the world. Roz Stendahl is the master of many media: the image above is from a journal for which she carved a fresh rubber stamp image to commemorate every day of a month. I first discovered her work via a series of journals in which she drew and painted her dog, Dot, every day for five years. Her drawings, her watercolors, her calligraphy and her creative approaches to journaling can all teach us a huge amount.
Rather than blather on here, groping for superlatives, I urge you to browse through her website in depth.
Last week I mentioned some invaluable Roz gave me in response to the following question:

What do you� like to use to add color on top of line drawings? I find my watercolors tend to muddy things up and dull the line, Dr.Martins are too vibrant and cartoony and so I stick to my Tombow brush markers but they can be a little unsubtle.
Here is the response in full: Danny, don't get me started! This is my favorite topic (well one of the top 100 at least).
I have made a small 3 x 5 inch palette of Daniel Smith watercolors for myself. By that I mean I bought a small palette and filled the pans with DS colors (1/4 of a pan at a time so they could dry fully). I find that DS rewets really well. Windsor Newton and other brands don't.

Then I carry the palette with me, and the famous Niji waterbrush. I use Staedtler Pigment Liner pens because they have a rich black, come in different nib sizes and are almost completely waterproof.  I'm a goof when it comes to "waterproof labels" I test test test. SPLs do great on most papers and the DON'T SMELL. I'm allergic to everything [except DOGS] and so I hate Microns because while they are nice to write with and waterproof, they smell. With the SPLs I can draw, and paint pretty much immediately and I'm splashing the color around but there isn't much bleeding of ink and the line shows through nicely. So I'm happy.

I also have made a small palette of Schmincke and M. Graham GOUACHE. Both these brands don't put lots of filler in their Gouache like Winsor Newton does so the colors aren't chalky. Both brands (Sch. and M. G), also rewet VERY nicely!!! And because there isn't a lot of crap in them you can use them in thin washes like watercolor glazes and then add some white on the top as needed (that will mess up your line a bit, but I don't mind it). Also, if I want to go opaque with the other colors I can. I just love the stuff. This was how I was meant to paint. I knew it when I was 8 years old and have been looking for the tools ever since.

The first two links are paintings I did with gouache over either SPL or another Pen called NEXUS which comes in a variety of colors and is also almost completely waterproof. It is kind of a rollerball tip so it is better on some papers that are too rough on the felt tip-pseudo technical pens. I particularly like the magenta ink and sepia and red ochre.  Both of these paintings are done on Turner Wove Blue from a now defunct mill in Britain. The sizing is wonderful. It's the paper I've found that is probably closest to what most 19th century watercolorists were painting on. FABULOUS. Of course when I discovered it I bought 4 sheets, made them into a small journal, and put it on a shelf for two years before I used it (I was using other journals with white pages at the time). Now the paper was already discontinued as the mill was already closed, but the local art store owner had so loved the mill she had bought huge amounts and was selling them off.

When I started using the journal and discovered how fabulous the paper was I went over to buy whatever was left, determined to hock everything to get as much as possible. It was all gone.

So that, and the immediate events of the final months of Dot's life, provided the final puzzle pieces in my education that I should give up the search for the perfect paper, etc. Why bother, I go through journals so quickly anyway that if I don't like a paper, well I'll be able to start a journal with another paper soon anyway! (I do have several favorite papers that I keep making journals out of though.)

http://www.rozworks.com/y5_5.html

http://www.rozworks.com/y5_6.html

The following reference is another gouache painting that I did of Dottie but this time I used the sepia (dark brown really) Faber Castel Pitt Artist Pen BRUSH nib. (these come in 3 colors that have brush and various point sizes of straight nibs, and then 24 colors total of brush tips.)

 http://www.rozworks.com/y5_25.html

As you can see I don't care if the line gets painted over at some points. The brush pen forces me to be very loose and not get futzy about details. I carry a number of them around in different colors.

The following sketch was done using a Nexus pen in the red ochre color, and then DS watercolor washes. The paper is a wonderful British paper that is no longer made. It is very dear and I'm screwing up my courage to go in and buy more to make some more books out of it like this one, as I love painting in watercolor and gouache on it. The entire zoo journal on my website is on this paper. It's soft, not really sized for watercolor, but sized enough so you can get some neat washes, and it has nubbly bits in it which, when viewed in person, difficult to see on the web, are delicious if you're a paper person, i.e., will cause immediate drooling.

 http://www.rozworks.com/zooB5.html

One thing that I've found is that different "waterproof inks" are less waterproof on some papers depending on the sizing of the paper. I think that in some cases the sizing floats the ink too long and if you start painting right away the ink hasn't had time to dry or in other cases there is too little external, internal, or both, sizing and the ink sinks down into the paper and spreads around, only to be reactivated by the wetness of the wash.

I've been letting go of waterproof standards lately, experimenting specifically with pens that produce a wash when I touch them with the Niji Brush. So I'm enjoying my Pilot Varsity fountain pen.
 http://www.rozworks.com/Fair08.html
Is an example of my work with this fountain pen. This journal was CARDS I cut from Fabriano Artistico (the old stuff if it matters to you, but the new stuff is OK too), 300 lb. Hot Press Watercolor paper. I prepainted with acrylic ink which is more or less waterproof when dry (you really have to scrub to get it to lift) and then took the cards to the Fair. They were easy to carry around, I could whip them out as needed, the pen wrote nicely on them and the Niji waterbrush helped add some shading and dimension.

I do a lot of painting on this kind of background. I think I like the challenge and the bright colors, and well who knows. A lot of serendipity happens. And I don't get bound up trying to do a perfect page layout.

Sorry you asked yet?

And finally I like to color pencil over my ink sketches. I just work mostly within the lines, but if I go over the lines I'm not too concerned. Some ink lines I might restate when I'm all done.

But my favorite is SPL pen, watercolor or gouache wash.

I have a charcoal gray Tombow which is fun to sketch with and wet, and draw shading out of the line.

I'm sorry you're having to switch hosts. Do you optimize your photos down for size? are you having a size problem with the site? I didn't understand what types of problems you were having. Hope they all get resolved quickly for your sanity!