Hand Painted Zine, Part 6 (some false starts)
This month I didn't accomplish the goal of finishing another zine page 😞. But maybe this is a good excuse to show you some of the stuff that happens in my sketchbook in the meantime.
Something I often find surprising when showing my sketchbooks is that people are attracted to elements I didn't think much of. Which is another reminder that it's hard to be the judge of your own creations.
Ideas in blue and pink
I often draw first thing in the morning when my brain is just getting started with the day (I'm not a morning person) and there is something about this barely functional state that works well for doodling. Often the goal of these drawings is just to get going, but sometimes I'll reuse ideas or elements from these into more developed projects.
I also tend to stick with colors and materials for weeks or months at the time, which explains the prevalence of blue and pink you are about to see.
I've been using a thick fountain pen with waterproof blue ink for the lines (specifically Noodler’s Upper Ganges Blue on a TWSBI GO Broad fountain pen), and opera rose watercolor for contrast, oh and a bit of my favorite blue, french ultramarine.
Here are some recent sketchbook pages:
This one is just fountain pen, I've been doing a lot of that sketchy texture with short lines:
And that's perhaps the segue into my false start.
Dubious Tessellation
I spent some time trying to develop a pattern but I wasn't happy with the results. I was thinking I could do something kinda like Escher's Sky and Water I, 1938:
But with a funny face.
Other Updates:
After much hesitation I moved my newsletter to Substack (https://wolfcatworkshop.substack.com/). It's far from ideal but it feels better than Mailchimp which was a little to bloated with marketing features for my humble uses. I'm pretty regular with this monthly Patreon updates and a little less regular with the newsletters (and your email is probably already too full 😅) but on substack you can check out the archives, subscribe to the less regular updates, and easily re-share things too.
Hope summer is treating you well ☀️, thank you so much for following along!
Federico :)