A few of my favorite art supplies

by | 1 Aug 2016 | Tips & Tricks

As artists, we get asked this question a lot: “What is your favorite medium?” or, slightly similar: “What art tools do you prefer?”

Well, my lovelies, I have decided to compile a list of my absolute favorite tools of the trade, and why I love them, just for you. 🙂

Traditional media

  1. Watercolor paint.
    • I am a huge fan of mixed media art. For me, no one medium does absolutely everything I want it to do — but combined… well, then all bets are off. By itself, I’m not a huge fan of watercolor. I appreciate the beauty of the medium and I love looking at watercolor illustrations. But, it’s too fluid, and it doesn’t do what I want it to. (Stubborn, remember?)
    • However, watercolor paint makes a wonderful, ethereal backdrop and I will often use it to start color blocking my pieces. (I also reserve watercolor for larger pieces.)
  2. Copic markers.
    • Copic markers are like watercolor’s richer, denser cousin. Still liquid, still easily blended, but much more saturated. I usually start off with neutral gray hues to shade my piece and tone down the colors so that they look more natural. Then, I layer up the colors to add life to the piece.
  3. Colored pencils.
    • This is my third tool of choice. Colored pencils are a great way to add detail to an illustration and to further pull out the colors that lay underneath.
  4. Acrylic paints.
    • I don’t always use acrylic paints, but sometimes an illustration needs a little extra texture and lift. Acrylics allow me to really pull out the highlights and give the piece an extra 3-dimensional quality.
  5. Hot-press watercolor paper.
    • This is my preferred surface to work on. Watercolor paper holds all of the liquid media well, minimizes bleeding, and allows for easy blending. I prefer hot-press because there is a little less texture and tooth to the paper. However, I have used both and sometimes the extra texture is a good thing!

Digital media

  1. Wacom tablets.
    • As a die-hard digital painting fan, I cannot even begin to remember what it was like before pen tablets. My preferred brand is Wacom, the industry leader in tablets for professional artists. I personally have the Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch Medium Tablet (CTH680) and I couldn’t be happier. Well, that’s not completely true. I have been eyeing that Cintiq Companion 2 Intel® Core™ for a while now. Maybe Christmas? (I’m looking at you, dear husband…)
  2. Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus 2.
    • I have recently become more interested in sketching out drawings digitally. Call me a traditionalist, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely do away with good old pencil and paper for my initial sketches. But I have found the iPad to be a freeing way to sketch — especially when coupled with good drawing apps that can transfer easily to Photoshop (more about that below).
    • I love this stylus for drawing on the iPad. It’s easy to use, it has pressure-sensitivity, and it moves like butter across the screen. (Not that I’m putting butter on my iPad. That’s just gross.)
  3. Apple iPad.
    • I know there are lots of other tablets out there nowadays, but I admit I’m a bit old fashioned when it comes to digital art and computers. While PC has come a long way, I’m just way too in love with Apple (all you PC fans, don’t freak out too hard — I love PC, too. I AM a Microsoft developer, after all. I do all my paintings on the PC!).
    • With retina display for stunning high-quality visuals, and mixed with the stylus I mentioned above and Adobe’s Photoshop Sketch app, the iPad is pretty tough to beat, in my opinion!
    • The only downside (currently) is that the drawings done on the iPad are not high-resolution. This isn’t an issue if you’re just sketching and moving into Photoshop for the final piece — but it would be nice to see this become available at some point in the future…
  4. Adobe Creative Suite.
    • What digital art list would be complete without good old Adobe (especially Photoshop and Illustrator)? I love the new creative suite and how it gives you cloud space. It’s a great way to keep projects available on more than one device! For instance, I can start a sketch on my iPad when I’m out and about, save it, and load it into Photoshop later to start doing the detail work!

Donkey grins and shows off his teeth

by | 6 Jul 2016 | Web Comic

Donkey grins and shows off his big teeth.

Donkey grins and shows off his big teeth.

Sketch done for Illustration Friday. Mixed media illustration – Copic marker, ink, and colored pencil.

Image (c) Danaye L. Shiplett. All rights reserved.

Book review of “The Watchmaker’s Daughter”

by | 2 Jul 2016 | Web Comic

There are times when an idea plants itself in my head, takes root, and refuses to fade.

(Usually those times happen late at night, just when I am trying to fall asleep.)

Last night, I had one of those ideas. Having earlier finished a new book, one particular scene caught my fancy and it wouldn’t let go. So, being the obsessive-compulsive that I am, (very) early this morning I took pencil to paper and sketched out the basic architecture. Still it remained. I then blocked in the highlights and shadows. Then, color.

Hours later, I finished the sketch to my (not-really, but I needed sleep) satisfaction.

It isn’t often that a story will do that to me. Take hold of my thoughts so obsessively that I can think of nothing else until the idea becomes a tangible manifestation. Since this one had that effect, I thought I would write up a quick review, because if you like fantasy, especially that takes place around the turn of the 19th century, I think you’ll really love this book.

First, the scene I depicted (below) is a small one where Matthew Glass removes India Steele’s coat for her. A simple gesture, but the whole moment is wrought with romantic tension and I loved the chemistry they shared. So much so that I had to sketch it.

WatchmakersDaughter

Matthew Glass assists India Steele in removing her coat.

Now, for my (brief) review:

India Steele is desperate. Her father is dead, her fiancé took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who’ll accept her – an enigmatic and mysterious man from America. A man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he’s ill.

 

Matthew Glass must find a particular watchmaker, but he won’t tell India why any old one won’t do. Nor will he tell her what he does back home, and how he can afford to stay in a house in one of London’s best streets. So when she reads about an American outlaw known as the Dark Rider arriving in England, she suspects Mr. Glass is the fugitive. When danger comes to their door, she’s certain of it. But if she notifies the authorities, she’ll find herself unemployed and homeless again – and she will have betrayed the man who saved her life.

This story has everything I look for in a quality, entertaining piece of fiction. 1) A strong female lead, 2) a dark and mysterious male character (I admit, they are my weakness), 3) eloquent writing, and 4) lots of quirky humor and banter.

It kept my attention and while the story unfolds at a leisurely pace, I did not find it overly sluggish or at all boring. There was just enough mystery to keep me turning the pages. The characters are well written (although the villain aspect was just a tad one-dimensional for my tastes).

A solid four out of five stars.

Check out The Watchmaker’s Daughter by CJ Archer on Goodreads