English / Venetian red (PR101)

The colour in my watercolour set I have used the least is PR101 - English red / Venetian red. It was in my original standard set. It’s certainly good for painting terracotta objects or red bricks, but what else? If I want a redish brown I can use a more neutral brown like sepia or burnt umber and mix in a little warm red. What to use it for?

So, I have gone ahead and mixed it with most of the colours in my palette. I tried to add just a touch of it to the respective colour and also to get a reasonable hue. Here are the results. Mixing colours from top to bottom and left to right are: buff titanium, jaune brilliant dark, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow medium, permanent red orange, cadmium red light, ruby red, ultramarine, helio cerulean, brilliant green (phtalo green), sap green, green earth, may green, yellow raw ochre, burnt umber.

Well, I will keep it in my palette as long as it lasts, mainly mixing it with the burnt umber here or there. The mixes with the reds are not bad, either. But I will certainly not replace it. Should I ever want a reddish brown in my palette, I will choose something else.

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Introduction

I have been drawing for 20 months now. I started back then, because I wanted a creative hobby, that you can do on a daily basis without needing lots of material initially. So I decided to learn a bit about the basics of drawing, practiced and soon found out, that it is easier than everybody thinks. And after all, you don't have to be perfect for it to be fun and for your drawings to be valuable. You are free to find your own way of drawing. While drawing as often as possible, I often find myself thinking a lot about this craft and me doing it. I certainly like drawing and sketching in sketchbooks. They are like journals you can browse through again and again and see what you were up to when you filled them. I am going to share my thoughts about drawing here and hopefully will dare to share one or the other drawing.

New Sketchbook

There is nothing like preparing a new sketchbook after you have finished the previous one. I like to decorate the insides of the front and back cover with stickers. One that says „Sylvia‘s sketchbook no. x“ and some simply for decoration. After filling the first page I also add the month I started it. After filling the last page I then add the month I finished it. The stuff on the right is just digital.

Architecture

Drawing architecture can be intimidating. A simple house or part of it is no problem. But something more complicated with lots of details tends to leave you overwhelmed. Where to start and how much detail to include? I'm not experienced in drawing more complicated buildings. So when I came across this photo of a church in Arles I liked the perspective, but at first wasn't sure if I could draw this. But I must have felt adventurous and went ahead. I grabbed a pencil and started with the basic shapes of the tower. Then proceeded with the basic shapes of the rest of the building - as much of it as fit on my page. Then the windows and some other, more detailed parts of the church. I didn't think much about perspective, just drew what I saw. With pencil you can always correct things if they don't work out. I would not have dared to draw this with pen from the start. When the pencil sketch looked good, I went over it with a fineliner. I added some more details an...

Sylvia‘s Art Journey

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