Testing around

The whole book-painting idea got my head whirring (to the point that I bought a few Tolkien books and The Way of Kings to paint, which gave rise to my seventeen-year-old daughter treating me to a "girl, CHILL!" when the latter arrived), and I did a sketch for possible Tolkien books embellishments. I transferred the Fëanor/Fingolfin/Finrod sketch to the book side via transfer paper, and then went and completely ruined it because I thought coloured pencil was a good idea for book edges. Full disclosure: it is not.

I also found that hardcovers are a beast to paint, that I can't work with such small faces in traditional media (at least on books), so that was a lot of knowledge gained for the small price of a ruined book. 😂

So I decided to do some dry gouache tests in Procreate first (see first image). And of course, I made a full gouache set for Procreate in the process. I‘ll polish that up a lot more and then I‘ll release it. ;)

I‘m glad I did those gouache pieces with strings attached, but still managed to get some good takeaways about colour harmony as well as being brave enough to cover up my lineart. I'll definitely be doing more with this.

I then was actually brave enough try real gouache in a watercolour sketchbook I started in 2021! My daughter also got out her sketchbook and we were doing gouache together, disparaging ourselves and generally having a lot of fun.

Syl. Not only did I cover up my sketch, but I didn’t even have a sketch to begin with, which was definitely a bold move and did not go over all that well. Still, it feels good to stretch the creative muscles again. It's also noteworthy that, a few years ago, I was unable to work on paper in any capacity, and while my eyes haven’t got better, my brain has, compensating for what I‘m not seeing. I was able to paint for two hours without any pain, which is pretty amazing. 🩵