Virus!

Hi!

Here's a page with a virus! I made it by adding a thin coat of acrylic gesso followed by layers of airbrushed transparent colors.  The line work was added using acrylic paint markers followed by some more transparent colors.

Big New Sketchbook, page 48. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Thanks for viewing and have a great day!

-Steve

Cut Paper Collage, Writing & Spiral

Hi.
Here are a couple of pages from my current sketchbook.

Big New Sketchbook, pages 46 & 47. Steve Franklin, 2016.

On the left, I cut out black construction paper shapes to arrange, rearrange and glue down on the page. Sometimes the figures and the empty spaces reverse roles.  I always consider the empty (negative) space when composing.  Both the figures and the ground is of equal importance.

On the right, I sprayed a simple spiral design over a paged that I had filled with writing. I used an airbrush with transparent acrylic paint (Golden High Flow mixed with Transparent Airbrush Extender).

Hope you enjoy the page, and I hope it inspires you to do your own collages in your sketchbook.  Sometimes a simple black on white scheme enables you to study shape to space relationship. Most of the time, overall simple shape greatly enhances your compositions no mater how complex your details are.

Thanks for viewing and have a great day!

-Steve

What the hell is it?

Hi.
I mashed some foamy clay (Model Magic) into a simple organic form, took a picture with my phone then mashed the clay again.  Here are some sketches from the pics on my phone.

Big New Sketchbook, page 37. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Big New Sketchbook, page 39. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Big New Sketchbook, page 41. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Thanks for viewing, and have a great day!

-Steve Franklin

Are You Trolling Me?

This is a silly page. Yes, I like to do humorous pages now and again.

This is in reference to a speaker at an event who was asked questions repeatedly by a student, got flustered and asked, "Are you trolling me?" After the event, everyone was asking each other, "Are you trolling me?" all day long and laughing. Trolling means acting like a troll.

How did I do this page? Well, I did the line work with a fountain pen followed by airbrushing acrylic colors, brushing some thin acrylic colors followed by a thin coat of acrylic gloss to seal the page:

Airbrush colors: Golden High Flow Acrylics mixed with Golden Airbrush Transparent Extender
Brushed colors: Golden Liquid Acrylics mixed with Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid
Are you trolling me? : Molotow acrylic paint marker
Topcoat: Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid followed by beeswax so the pages don't stick together

Are You Trolling Me? Big New Sketchbook, page 33. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Hope you enjoy this page.

Have a great day!

-Steve

Messing With Color

Hi.
Here I'm just messing around with cheap acrylic paints.

Basically, this is what I call a "quick fill page".  I like to fill all my sketchbook pages, so some days, I go back to the blank pages in my sketchbook and quickly fill them up with something.  Or some days, I go back to pages that somehow look incomplete, and I'll just touch them up enough to look complete.  Sometimes this means just applying a fancy border to a page.  Other times, this involves completely transforming a bland page into something beautiful. I just have a need to make my sketchbooks worth looking at from beginning to end.

Well, this is just a quick fill page, so I just started with a thin coat of acrylic gesso followed by some quick sketching with a color loaded brush.  In this instance, like when I start many paintings, I used a big brush.  When I paint, I always have a dampened cloth and a bowl of water ready.  I tell my students that to paint, one must always be aware of what is on the brush.

Anyway, here it is:

Big New Sketchbook, page 32. Acrylic. Steve Franklin, 2016.

As you can see, I like messing around with color.

Thanks for viewing, and have a wonderful day!

-Steve

No. 2 Pencil Portrait

I made an example of a No. 2 Pencil portrait in my sketchbook. I started by sketching someone with pencil then began filling it with pencils, conforming them to the shape of the face. Some pencils were really distorted and abstracted.

Next, I colored using watercolors followed by outlining with different micron pens.  I sealed the page with a thin coat of gloss acrylic.

Carla Warla, Big New Sketchbook, page 31, watercolor and pen. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Thanks for viewing and have a great day!

-Steve

Strange Finger Thingy

Hey!

Here's a weird, spur-of-the-moment abstraction. How did I do it?
Well, I started with a thin layer of gesso followed line work with a black Molotow acrylic paint marker then transparent layers of airbrush colors, mixing Golden High Flow colors with Golden Transparent Extender.  I completed it with the line work using the black then white acrylic marker.

Thanks for viewing, and have a wonderful day!

-Steve

Big New Sketchbook page 28, Steve Franklin, 2015.

Construction Paper Collage

Well, what can I say.

I like making simple cut paper collage. Sometimes I limit myself to certain proportions of each color then force myself to use every bit of each color.  It helps me to focus on relationships between simple shapes and other shapes, the ever changing empty spaces newly created while arranging and rearranging (figure to ground relationship), each color, and just composition in general.

The other fun thing I like to do is interpret shapes. I see the following: a worm or a razor blade, a one-toothed witch, a bird perched on a branch, the side view of a horse's head, etc.

Mostly, making a simple collage just helps to relax me and relieve stress.  When my arrangement is complete, I just take a photo of it with my phone to use as a reference when I glue each piece down with regular school glue (Elmer's).

Big New Sketchbook, page 26. Collage. Steve Franklin, 2016.

Thanks for viewing, and have a wonderful evening!

-Steve

Cleopatra, my dog

Hello.
I've been working towards my goal to complete a painting per week.  The last painting that I completed yesterday gave me a hard time.  I had to take several breaks, and finally completed it Sunday eventing. By the time I was finished, I thought: Finally, I can get the struggle is over and out of my life. Now I can move on to something new.

Today, after work, I just feel so tired.  My next panel is primed and ready to start the next image.  I'm disappointed with myself because my body is sore all over, and I don't have the energy to start just yet. Hopefully, I'll be able to start something before the evening is over.

In the meantime, here's a portrait I did of Cleopatra, my dog.

Cleopatra. Big New Sketchbook, page 22. Acrylic. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Starting with a thin coat of gesso then airbrushing the phthalo blue and quinacridone magenta (Golden High Flow Acrylics) for the purple background.  Next, I blocked in most of the image using gesso with a flat 1 inch wide brush. Next, using liquid acrylics, I layered the colors with round and filbert brushes.  All this was sealed with a thin coat of acrylic gloss using a small fan brush. Note: when doing glossy acrylic pages in your sketchbook, you must consider one important thing: the opposing page should not be glossy, or the pages might stick together.  To solve this, I either sketch with pencil or watercolor on the opposite page, or use matte medium followed by a layer of beeswax on the surface of the page to avoid having to peel the pages apart.

Thanks for viewing and have a great evening!

-Steve

Consumption?

Hi.

I don't know why, but I guess at the time I was thinking about consumption while I was doing this page. It seems I was using watercolor, ink pen, acrylic markers,  and a white Gelly Roll pen to complete this page. For some reason, this reminds me that the other day, while using pen and ink and decided to try this: I made different bold watercolor washes and dipped the pen nib into them to see if it works--and it does! I thought: "Now, why didn't I think of that before?"

Thanks for viewing, and have a wonderful day!

Steve

New Big Sketchbook, page 18. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Random Nose Page

Hi.

Here is a page filled with noses, drawn from direct observation. There are so many noses out there. Have you ever thought of filling a page with just noses?  I've seen my share of pages filled with eyes and lips before.  These are all sketched with a mechanical pencil.  I usually prefer to sketch with either a colored pencil, or a drawing pencil, but at the time, I wanted to just use a mechanical pencil.  It's a 9mm lead pencil.  I prefer to use the 09mm, if I'm going to sketch, because I tend to break the 05's.

i

Big New Sketchbook, page 17. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Thanks for viewing. I appreciate you.
-Steve

Doodles

Hey,
Here are a couple of doodle pages.

Big New Sketchbook, pages 12 & 13. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Somedays, I go back and add borders and touchups to make an earlier page look more complete.  This is what I did to page 12.  I used a stamp to make the little box shapes on the border. I also add some pen detail using my fountain pen (Noodler's Ahab), and watercolor washes.  Page 13 was a pen doodle with ink pencil and watercolor washes.

Have a great day!

-Steve

Latest Sketchbook

Hello.
Here are some pages from my current sketchbook. How did I make the pattern on the left? Simply using a compass, I drew a circle, added a mark on the edge of the circle then placed the point on that mark and drew another circle then placed the point wherever the last circle crossed the first circle, and so on.  Making patterns can be therapeutic.

Big New Sketchbook pages 2 & 3, Steve Franklin, 2015 & 2016.

Big New Sketchbook pages 4 & 5, Steve Franklin, 2015.

On the above pages, I'm just doodling and jotting down thoughts.  I like to play around with color on doodles, considering composition once I have enough doodling helps.  I used Derwent Intense blocks and watercolors.

Thanks for Viewing!

-Steve

Silent Viewer

Hello, dear silent viewer!
Here's another portrait of my dog Cleopatra. I wonder if it's just a machine viewing my blog.  No one comments. Oh well, I will persist.  I glued newspaper text onto the page then sketched my dog.  The white is gesso. Thanks for viewing.

Big Old Sketchbook, page 151. Steve Franklin 2014.

I appreciate you.

-Steve Franklin

Sleeping Dog Dreams

Here are some more old pages. I'm trying to catch up with myself. My goal is to show old sketchbook pages and get up to date where I will post pages as I make them.  The only problem is that I keep filling up journal pages.  I really want to share.

Below are sketches of my Great Pyrenees dog "Cleopatra" sleeping and an abstract design with letters and shapes.

Big Old Sketchbook, pages 135 &136, Steve Franklin, 2014.

Big Old Sketchbook page 150. Steve Franklin, 2014.

Above is a sort of landscape looking abstract design using a pen.  I love to scribble abstract designs. It's really therapeutic to do.

Thanks for viewing.

-Steve

Doodles and Watercolor Pages

Hey,

Here are four more sketchbook pages.  I sketched people at a table during a conference.  I used watercolors.

Big Old Sketchbook pages 131 & 132, Steve Franklin, 2014.

Big Old Sketchbook, pages 129 & 130. Steve Franklin, 2014

Here is a page of doodles using pen & ink, abstract designs for the sake of exploring color, a made up ancient alphabet and other doodles.

Thanks for viewing.

-Steve

Observational Sketches

Hi.
Here are observational sketches of people in art class. I like to draw with a light brown colored pencil when I am sketching people much better than using a pencil.  I think this is because I can't really erase with colored pencil. Then I add color.  Sometimes, I color with colored pencils, but I prefer to use a paintbrush.  The page on the right is colored with Derwent Inktense pencils.  I like the colors available in these pencil sets, plus all I have to do is use a wet brush to create a watercolor effect.  The difference is that ink is supposed to be permanent and shouldn't lift if rewetting is necessary for layered washes.

Big Old Sketchbook, pages 101 & 102, Steve Franklin, 2014.

Big Old Sketchbook, pages 107 & 108, Steve Franklin, 2014.

In the above pages, I did blind contour, also known as pure contour portraits then colored them using Intense and watercolors.  Pure contour drawing occurs when you use a single long line without looking at the paper.  They are really fun to do in a sketchbook.
Yay!
Take care,
-Steve

Crazy Pen & Ink Page

Hi.
Here's a pen & ink page from my Big Old sketchbook.  I spent some time adding plenty of marks before completing this page back in 2014.

Big Old Sketchbook page 100. Pen & Ink. Steve Franklin, 2014

I find marking patterns can be very therapeutic. It's just some strange form I made up.  Thanks for viewing.

-Steve

Snapshot sketches

Hello.
On this page I used a stamp of the shape of a polaroid picture and filled each with a sketch. It's fun to fill each with a sketch.  On the top, left, I drew my "Angel Bunny" Cleopatra. She's a Great Pyrenees.

Old Zeta page 17, Steve Franklin, 2014.

Below the sketches are stamps I carved out of "Easy Cut" normally used (the rubbery white stuff) for relief printmaking.

Forms

Hi again!
Here's a page in my old Zeta sketchbook where I painted forms. I used really cheap craft acrylic paint.

Forms, Old Zeta Sketchbook page 9, Acrylic. Steve Franklin, 2015.

Thanks for viewing.

-Steve