I told you I decided to revisit the Gretsch stippling painting. It’s coming along quite nicely though I’ve learned a new thing or two. And I have started on the next stippling project. So, I have some updates for you.
As I got to working on the grey patch on the Gretsch piece, it’s the tailpiece with the Bigsby Tremolo technically, I had to remember a key bit of information when working with acrylic inks that I’m mixing with white. I need to add water. For some reason, and I suspect it has to do with the nature of the pigment used in the white acrylic ink, it seems to gum up easily. The pen nib gets gummy and has to be cleaned more frequently and it doesn’t flow as well. If I dilute it with some water, it works quite nicely.
Working on the grey I found that once everything dried it was quite shiny and tacky. At first, I thought it might work out to my advantage since that area is metal and that would be a nice touch. But as I kept working on it, I found it more irritating and not very advantageous. I also had to figure out what it was that had caused it.
Normally I use the Daler Rowney FW Acrylic Artist Inks. When I was working on this project several years ago, and I suspect thinking of other projects I might tackle, I started picking up some other brands to try, some say acrylic ink on the bottle, some say fluid acrylics. When I went to mix the grey for the tailpiece, I decided to try using a white from one of the other brands, and it happens to be a fluid acrylic. But I also used a bit of green from a different brand along with my Daler Rowney black.
After a small amount of experimenting, because fortunately there were only the three variables, I found the culprit. The fluid acrylic was the issue. Since acrylic paints, and particularly fluid acrylic paints are basically liquid soft plastic, it makes sense. Anyway, it was really good to identify since the bridge, that needed to be a little more yellow-ish also needed to be dull and definitely not shiny. So, when I mixed my color for that area, I made sure to use the Daler Rowney white so that there is no real sheen to it.
Which brings me to progress. I’ve made quite a bit of progress. I have the strings done. Though, I may add some flourishing touches to them. I decided it would be easier to do the bridge if I had the strings there so I could butt the bridge color right up next to them instead of leaving some gap for them. Though, I could have just dropped them in over the top of whatever color as well.
I also dropped in a couple of layers of color for the bridge. That took a bit of work to get the color just right. I’m still not sure I have it 100% but I’m moving on and will look at it again as I get in next layers in some other areas. I finished the layer of black that I’d been working on. As I did this, I found that some of my drafting had been off on the tremolo area of the tailpiece, and I needed to adjust some things. And this is what I like about acrylics and oils, and even pastels as opposed to watercolors and markers. I was able to just ink over the areas that needed adjusting using the appropriate colors. So black over the grey to adjust the shape and dingy grey over black to adjust the location and it looks better now.
I’ll get back to that statement about what I do and don’t like about the different mediums at another time. But it did turn out that the situation on this piece was crucial to defining that for me. Sure, helps out as I decide on how to tackle certain projects.
And that’s the Gretsch. I’ve made really great progress and will likely have even more done by the time I post this. I’ll do my best to capture more ‘work in progress’ pictures so you can see the progression. Most projects are fun to see the progression, I think stippling projects, especially of this nature are particularly fascinating.
Which brings me to the new project that I’ve started. It’s the Rhinoceros. I mentioned in the last post that I’d been waffling about whether to do it in marker or pen and ink stippling and that I had decided to do the pen and ink stippling. I got started on it. I’m using my right hand for this, and my wrist does still get tired, so I try to take breaks or work in small chunks of time. Which, by the way, is how I’ve been working on the Gretsch mostly, in small chunks of time, not marathon hours long sessions. Anyway, try as I do, the challenge I run into with the Rhino is that since I am using a pen, and not the acrylic ink like for the Gretsch, it is really easy to pick up the pen and fix something, or fill in something that doesn’t quite look right until I do. And so, it is addictive, obsessive, and difficult to walk away from. Which means, I did over do it at least once. Fortunately, it only resulted in a tired and slightly stiff wrist the next day. And I have learned my lesson, at least in principle. I am excited about this one. So far, I can’t wait to so see how it turns out. There are some drafting bits that I may not have quite right, and I’m concerned that it means the finished piece will look odd. But I’ve already inked them and, in this case, there’s no going back or making huge adjustments. So, I am continuing on and looking forward to seeing the result. I am going to have to so something about a ground and maybe some sort of background. I need the ground to make it look right. Without it, the head especially looks very awkward. There is still a lot of work to be done so it will be a while before this one is done.
And that’s where things are at the moment. Progress is being made and there is more to come. As I said before, I have several more projects in mind and at least three of those worked out enough in my head that just need me to have the time to work on them.