Sketchbook Confessional June 2023

Welcome to June 2023’s Sketchbook Confessional! The Sketchbook Confessional is a blog where I review all of the art that I made in a month. Rather than a ‘to-do’ list, the Sketchbook Confessional is a ‘done’ list, where I can objectively see what I made.

June was a month where I did utilize my sketchbook a bit more than not. I’ve been very into the Traveler’s Notebook, which is a leatherbound journal that has refillable pages to be filled out.

With my baby, it’s a little hard for me to travel, because I don’t want to put myself, my baby, and other people through air travel involving lots of crying. I had ear infections when I was a kid and I still remember the pressurization in my ears when I flew as a young girl, and that being painful. But at least I could pop my ears, I guess babies can’t exactly do that. Anyways! I’m living my ideas of travel through my Traveler’s Notebook, and I put together some scraps from my 2019 Tokyo trip (below). It’s been a fun way to look back on the trip, though I hope to have more trips to look forward to in the future.

Since June was an event-heavy month and very planning heavy, I wrote shorter blogs in June covering all of my creative things I was up to.

Making a Prompt Jar for Creativity

Tokyo 2019 ink drawings

Leadville Harperrose Studios Expansion!

Art life and Mom Life

Painting on Tile in oil and gouache

Traveler’s Notebook Pages from my 2019 Japan Trip

Kuretake Double Sided Brush Pen No. 55

Chromatek Water Brush Pens

Denver Fan Expo

Denver Fan Expo was June 30th-July 2, and it was awesome for the first two days, as of this blog’s writing there is still one more day to go! It was fun to get everything together for this expo. Most of June was all about ordering display items, prints, and stocking up on things for the con.

I had been to Denver Fan Expo as a fan before but not as an artist. It was wonderful to meet everyone who stopped by!

Now reading:

Lake of the Long Sun - Gene Wolfe

This is my favorite Gene Wolfe book yet. The second book in the long sun tetrology, there are secrets and memories of other Gene Wolfe books that appear in this one that make it quite rewarding. It’s also quite an adventure. There are many sci fi concepts and characters to enjoy and the writing is, as always, unparalleled. I finished Lake of the Long Sun in June and started the next book in this series.

Deep Work - Cal Newport

I’d read the similarly titled David Lynch book and thought I would give this one a try. The book opens with anecdotes about how writers and thinkers like Carl Jung accomplished their best work in isolated states. The book tackles the trap of visible busyness, and also internet-centrism. Since it was written in 2016, there’s no way it could have predicted 2020’s pandemic crisis and the mental health and connectivity issues that persisted throughout. Physical isolation became more of a norm for more of us than anyone could have expected, and I think what we found out in 2020 is that not everyone is meant to be isolated. Maybe creatives like me can’t wait for a few hours alone, but many, many people, including me, aren’t built for weeks and months of being alone in a tower like Jung was.

At one point the author does admit that people in roles involving people, like sales, probably perform much better when hyperconnected. The initial idea of ‘Deep Work’ might be limited to people who run databases, do computer programming, or write academic articles or fiction books, but I think it can be extended to practices that concern me, like art.

Building a Second Brain - Tiago Forte

Deep Work seems to suggest that electronics are the gateway drug to multitasking, the opposite of Deep Work. Building a Second Brain is more encouraging towards utilizing a computer to take notes.

I like both. I keep hobonichi techo day planners and also a Traveler’s Notebook for drawings. I think this blog is my Second Brain type organization system.

The thoughts in these books are important to me as I navigate life as an artist and a mom. The way I take time is totally different now that I have a baby and I am making every effort to stay on top of things.

Running:

I finished The Heavy Half in Leadville with a time of 4:44. It was a fantastically fun and exciting race, with snow happening for most of the race up high. At some points, it was like running uphill through a creek, as water was coming down the trail in large volumes. We’ve had such a rainy spring and summer all over Colorado. It’s strange to see so much water in places that would normally be dry, but that’s what is happening. Rain, on top of snowmelt, has made the season this way.

That was my big exciting June! Catch you next time!

Medium Moment: Painting on Tile

I’ve enjoyed painting on tile lately, and I’ve made probably about 20 tile paintings so far. Here is what I have learned about making paintings on tile.

A tile might be thought of as a nontraditional surface, yet it works so very well! It helps me to remember that a canvas is simply the best surface that people in the past could come up with at the particular time. Thousands of years of artists painting on rock, wood, canvas, and paper coalesces in canvases being what we largely think of as the best or most common art surface to paint on.

It turns out that painting in oil on tile is easy! I personally didn’t have to prime the surface at all for the kind of painting I do, which is usually impasto-style painting of laying down a thick layer of a neutral color like white or offwhite, and then painting into that layer with deeper color.

Since oil paint is very much made to stick, it doesn’t peel or chip off the tile. If you’ve ever painted on glass, it’s a lot like painting on glass. The paint doesn’t really fall or sink into any canvas, it sits on top of the glass surface and is easy to move around. This is why I think it’s great for impasto painting. It’s sculptural at some levels but still very much about painting and color.

Here are two lupine paintings I made with oil paint:

Oil on tile is awesome.

To paint in gouache on tile, I primed the tile with a thin coat of clear gesso. I am sure white gesso would also work well, I only happened to have clear gesso on hand so that is what I used.

I decided to do priming for gouache painting after attempting to paint without any priming, and this was immediately not a good idea. Maybe if the tile were less smooth or if it were more porous, one wouldn’t have to prime the tile, but I definitely had to prime every single type of tile I’ve had for gouache painting, and I’ve probably used about 4 different types.

These are oil paintings on tile samples

In the spring I had an idea to make paintings of desert night scenes with fantastic galaxies and nebulas, and having a tiny cowboy in the painting somewhere. I call this series the Space Cowboy series, overtly about the ending tag of each Cowboy Bebop episode.

I really enjoyed making these oil paintings on tile. The space cowboy paintings didn’t utilize too much impasto even, I think most of the paintings were pure oil with maybe a bit of liquin mixed in.

The paintings above are oil on tile, the paintings below are gouache on tile.

I eventually sealed the gouache with a thin layer of acrylic gel medium, to give the paintings the shine and apparent body of my oil paintings. I don’t think it’s hard to tell between the gouache and oil paintings, but if I weren’t so versed, it might be a bit hard to tell, because the finish is so similar.

If I layered the gouache too thickly, it would sometimes crack. I assume this is because the gouache can’t really sink into anything, so it forms a layer and loses structure, where gouache is designed to sink into paper and not be thickly layered. Given the cracks, I wasn’t sure how to fix this. I would try to thin out the cracked layer with water application or with another thin layer of paint (probably a bad idea) but it was hard to get those cracks out. Maybe even some particular colors of the gouache I was using cracked more than others. I’m not sure. After seeing the cracking, this is why I figured it would be a good idea to seal the gouache tile paintings in gel medium, which as far as I have seen is pretty much immune to all kinds of cracking and damage.

Another reason that I think we love painting on canvas is that a finished canvas is relatively easy to display. Nobody really frames a tile - tiles are meant to be stepped on, or meant to be put on a wall in large groups.

I found that shadow boxes worked really well to frame and display paintings on tile. I adhere the painting with a removable-but-strong tape strip to the shadow box backing, and let it sit in the box. I really like how this turned out. The glass protects the painting surface from dust and showcases the tile in an elegant way.

To sum up:

• Painting in oil on tile is straightforward and doesn't require priming. The paint sticks well to the tile surface, allowing for impasto-style painting.

• Gouache painting on tile requires priming with clear gesso to improve adhesion. Different types of tiles may need priming as well.

• Shadow boxes are my recommendation for displaying painted tiles, providing protection and an elegant presentation.

Harperrose Studios Expansion!

I was happy to travel to Leadville lately to see the newly-expanded Harperrose Studios! Harperrose now has more than twice as much space as before to showcase local Leadville and Colorado artists!

It’s wild for me to remember that Harperrose’s building space used to be the old video rental place in town. The transformation of this little corner of Leadville has completely floored me. This space is such a good thing for Leadville, and such a wonderful way to honor artists.

Mineshaft postcards are pictured above, featuring six of my mineshaft oil paintings. The mineshaft in the paintings can be seen from the Mineral Belt Trail in Leadville.

Below is a large oil painting of mine of Mt. Elbert.

The painting above is of a fairy-slipper orchid, a rare flower that can be found near Leadville in rare instances. One hint I will say is that I have seen them near Turquoise Lake. From what I’ve seen, they grow in shady areas with mixed amounts of moisture and dryness.

Several of my original paintings are at Harperrose studios, as well as prints, mini-prints, paper art, and bookmarks!

All in all, the grand-reopening was a wonderful event and a fantastic way to celebrate the expansion! Congrats Harperrose!

Paper Hummingbirds

Lately I’ve been making paper hummingbird collages using handpainted yupo paper, watercolor paper, and other painted papers. It’s been really fun! I will assemble a few collages while taking care of my newborn.

Once I had a few collages like this finished, I uploaded a few designs of the collages to my shop on Society 6.

The designs on Society6 turned out very cute!

Eight Hummingbirds:

Fourteen Hummingbirds

26 Hummingbirds

Sketchbook Confessional December 2019

Welcome to December 2019’s Sketchbook Confessional!

The Sketchbook Confessional is a place where I post and describe all of the art that I did in one month’s time, an effort to reel in the chaos of art and objectively know what I did and did not do.

Art:

December is a bit of a glum time in DC/Maryland/Virginia so I ended up subliminally drawing a lot of artwork with eye-melting bright colors.

When making the piece above, I was thinking about Disney movies and how princesses always have this part where they sing and they are surrounded by friendly animals, like Ariel and Flounder in The Little Mermaid, or like Belle and her horse and other farm animals in Beauty and the Beast.

I began thinking wow, life sure is not like that at all, most animals are pretty rough - the animal kingdom is often as cruel as ours. Even birds can be absolutely terrifying. So, I envisioned a princess who makes friends with predators. Weasels, snakes, tigers, hyenas - all of these are the ‘evil’ or ‘bad’ animals of pop culture, but why? What if we could be friends with the ‘bad’ animals, and, what if they aren’t really that bad? It’s not their fault they’re eels.

The four-winged vulture was just one I threw in there because, you know.

This month I also did a bunch of art from Die Hard! There’s a full mini blog of these drawings here:

DIE HARD DECEMBER

I was lucky to get a large iPad Pro for Christmas from Marc. He looked into Wacom and other tablets, and the ipad eventually won out . I have a smaller 2018 iPad Pro 2 that I won, miraculously, by playing blackjack, somehow?

While I love my mini iPad for riding on the metro, I’ve named my 12.9 inch Big Boi and it stays at home with me in the studio, planted on a stand. The real estate of the larger screen does matter - I already feel like a more powerful artist who can see quite a bit better. There’s no parallax and the drag is perfect. No need for a screen protector or drag-enhancer to make production art.

The first thing I made on my new ipad pro 2

Tilted Sun is finishing the year at 92 pages. It’s become a bit of a Russian Doll of stories, with characters experiencing the thoughts and memories of other characters as time goes by. The year’s final panel of Tilted Sun:

I feel very happy with how Tilted Sun is turning out. There’s always more to be said and done, and none of it is full circle yet, but I’m glad I just started and just kicked the tires on making comics instead of waiting for a publisher or a kickstarter or someone in the industry to say yes. I’d recommend this approach to anyone. If you want to make something, just do it.

Tilted Sun is my science fiction/fantasy comic of absolute creative freedom, where I can talk about anything, and it turned out to be a place where I talk about computers and technology. At this time in 2019-soon-to-be-2020, computers are something that are fully integrated into our lives. In Tilted Sun everything is just a bit further along, where computers are absolutely entangled with people and also the natural world. That’s about as much as I can say without spoiling it. :) You know I love surprises.

One of my friends said to me lately “Scott Adams did computer stuff and made Dilbert, and you made … this”. There are so many absurd, funny, heartbreaking moments in working with computers, but there is also so many fabulous, ‘I-can’t-believe-we-made-that-work'' moments. Maybe I haven’t had my heart broken enough yet, but I think I actually have, over and over again, and this is what I do anyways.

I think the best art comes when artists are fully in their own world and producing what they truly want to produce. Commissions are great, but the best thing you could ever do with an extremely talented artist is just hire them and say “Make whatever you want to make” and turn them loose on a project. The best people I’ve worked with have done this for me, and I’m grateful.

I’ve started putting up more posts about my comics-creation process on Instagram. Since I save everything I do, I figured Instagram would be a good platform to show some of the work that goes into the final product.

To fire off 1000-word microblogs on Instagram, I use an app called Later to type out posts on a computer with a full keyboard. Later has helped me save a bunch of time, because I can type faster than I can tap, and since posts are scheduled I can block out an hour and get posts done for an entire week, and not spend as much time fussing over Instagram. It also has a cool planner function so you can see how your spread of posts will look. This is important since I’m trying to be more consistent and make blocks of consistent content in sets of three - for example, three lifestyle posts, three drawings, and three paintings.

Why do all this planning around Instagram? I started working harder on Instagram because I realized my Instagram profile actually gets as many visits as this website. It’s a pretty fun place to engage and I do an occasional livestream there so ff to follow if you aren’t already: https://www.instagram.com/beckyjewell/

This website is a great place for high-level tutorials, 4000-word journals, longevity, and step-by-step writeups on art tools, but for everything else, for everything new, Instagram is great.

Playing:

I’m watching a bunch of Death Stranding and made some fanart of the part where Norman Reedus puts on the dreamcatcher necklace. A couple of my friends messaged me to say that Death Stranding reminded them a lot of Tilted Sun, just in a darker sense. I do see the similarities - the main character is named Sam, and there are all kinds of unexplained mysteries and concepts. I was so flattered by these messages because even if Death Stranding is a bit opaque to me, Hideo Kojima is an artist’s artist.

The game started creating a pretty eerie feeling in me since I live in Maryland-shy-of-DC and the scenes about presidentiality and goverment started to feel very close to home. I think this is just part of living somewhere iconic - movies like Independence Day and National Treasure have a new tint to them if DC is your home, it’s like romantic background noise that you’re trying to cut through as you’re stuck in DC traffic or on the metro.

I am not going to lie, I do NOT understand Death Stranding at all, but I am onboard to try to understand it. Maybe understanding isn’t the point, and though sci-fi audiences deeply want to ‘get’ and ‘know’ and be experts of scifi universes, there are some parts of both life and fiction that just won’t make any sense, or, some that will depend on you to piece things together.

I’m not sure when scifi got so explaination-heavy, or when it became an expectation that everything had to be logical or planned. It might even be remake-culture at work, where we are so used to certain universes that, the second that something new comes along in pop culture, we can barely handle it in a critical way.

It’s like when the most gleaming, dazzling minds of my life call artwork and stories ‘property’ or ‘content.’ The part of me that loves what is wild and free just reels. It just reels.

Fitness:

Well yes, December has been pretty glum, weatherwise, in the DMV, so I’ve been hitting the treadmill at the gym. I’m ramping up in confidence and am just running for about an hour in a sportsbra and leggings, pumping the jams on Spotify. What’s good about the gym and jams is it keeps me in a good mood even if the weather is miserable. Occasionally I will run hills in our neighborhood in Maryland just to get some out-of-the-gym chaotic experience.

I’m still working with a personal trainer once per week, which absolutely kicks my ass, but its moving me in a good direction artwise. When I work out midday, I find that I have more energy when I get home and I crank through more artwork than I would have otherwise. I’m not a get-up-early person anymore, so, midday workouts seem to be what I can do in my current life in a way that makes sense.

Until next time, Space Cowboys … let’s DO THIS 2020!! I love you all!!

Related blogs:

Sketchbook Confessional November 2019

Sketchbook Confessional October 2019

Sketchbook Confessional September 2019

Who wrote this?

I’m a painter and I make comics, I also travel! I love writing about art and seeing art in the world. I live and work in Maryland-shy-of-DC. Catch you next time …

- Becky Jewell

Sketchbook Confessional October 2019

Welcome to another Sketchbook Confessional, where I get all of the art out of my system.

The Sketchbook Confessional is a place where I post and describe all of the art that I did in one month’s time, an effort to reel in the chaos of art and objectively know what I did and did not do.

Art:

I made mini oil paintings to just ‘get something down’ .

I also drew a lot of cats in October for a fun upcoming project!

In other cat creations, I collaborated with my friend Kate to make the above piece of a Sphinxian Riddle Moment. I liked the original sketch Kate made and just had to color it. The piece at the top of this blog has similar vibes - there’s something magnificent in the onlooker who gazes upon a terrible beast.

Reading/Watching/Playing

I’m still playing Octopath Traveler and Breath of the Wild, and am making many drawings from BoTW for reference, like these drawings of Link’s boots!

Travel:

I went to Milwaukee for my cousin’s wedding and picked out some of my favorite paintings from the Milwaukee Art Museum. The MAM was great and I’d recommend that you absolutely go if you ever find yourself in Milwaukee.

This month I wanted so badly to do Inktober, but I just didn’t. I had too many other projects on the table which took precedence. It’s too bad, usually with art, the more you make, the more you make, but not this October.

Until next time, Space Cowboys! Let’s do our best.

Related Blogs:

Tilted Sun

Sketchbook Confessional September 2019

Sketchbook Confessional August 2019

Sketchbook Confessional July 2019

Who wrote this?

I’m a painter, I make comics, and sometimes I do computer stuff!

- Becky Jewell

Crow Magnum - Sneak Peek!

I’m happy to announce I am working on a graphic novel adaptation of a short story by author Laurel McHargue!

A high-octane visual psychic thriller, Crow Magnum tells the story of Ruby and Jade, twins who make an unlikely discovery about their mother’s mysterious death.

The comic is drawn in a dramatic black-and-white style in the spirit of Frank Miller - with a modern twist! Here’s a sneak peek for now - enjoy!

I’ve loved every minute of adapting this short story to graphic novel form!

About Laurel McHargue:

Award-winning author Laurel McHargue, a 1983 graduate of The United States Military Academy at West Point, was raised in Massachusetts, but somehow found her way to the breathtaking mountains of Colorado, where she completed Waterwight, her fantasy adventure trilogy. Laurel's goal is to author as many books as possible in genres of every type. She produces and hosts the podcast Alligator Preserves about storytelling and the human condition, and blogs about life—real and imagined—at leadvillelaurel.com. She also has been known to act!

Laurel will be at Denver Pop Culture Con this year, go see her!

Art Journal May 20 2018

Lately I've been looking at a few big changes in life, mostly adjusting to life on the East Coast! 

This weekend I worked on a couple small watercolor pencil drawings made on the paper from France (Paris art store blog here!) Although my trip to Paris was in November, it took me a while to think about what I wanted to put on these delicately handmade pieces of paper. Perhaps I shouldn't say 'delicately handmade' - they're really strong and sturdy pieces of paper, yet you can feel the care and time that went into creating them. 

Indian Paintbrush

For these small watercolor pencil drawings I am still using the Caran d'Ache Supracolor pencils, wonderful pencils in every way. The variation of colors in the 80 pencil set prove to be a dynamic and sophisticated range.

I couldn't decide on many of these pieces to add water to them or not. The seemed to look fulfilled with no water added, so I let them be for the most part. 

A couple happy hummingbirds 

On the other side of the studio, I've been working through a list of Things I Want to Paint, a list of photos that I have assembled on Facebook of memories, things, and people that I want to paint. 

I decided to keep a running list of Things I Want to Paint after one day where I was stuck in front of my easel without a thought in my head of what I wanted to do. There is little worse than scraping along and finally getting time to paint and then suddenly... not knowing what you want to paint! 

"Things I want to Paint" is a public gallery on Facebook, so even if you are not my Facebook Friend, you can still hop over and take a look! (I am extremely friendly I just don't have time for Facebook too much anymore...) 

Below are a couple results of "Things I Want to Paint" 

A photo of my friend's vacation to Tahiti, including a shark swim, and the painting: 

A photo of my mom relaxing with Geddy the Poodle, and the painting: 

These paintings are fairly in keeping with my style and outlook, I like to paint with bright colors only, I usually stay away from using brown or gray. 

This month has also been a good month for digital art. I am still loving every moment of Clip Studio Paint on the iPad Pro. I'm finished with the very generous free trial and am grateful for every feature, every penny is worth it. If I meet the developers of this app I will hug them. 

One aspect of Clip Studio Paint on the iPad Pro that stands out and that probably doesn't get enough laudation is the basic pencil tool. The pens are great. The watercolor effects are bangin. But the regular old pencil tool really... just drives it home. It seems so simple, but it's so very powerful. Most importantly, it feels natural. 

I made a couple drawings in Clip Studio Paint using a light lavender pencil on a black background. It's a lovely etching, scratch-paper like effect. Here is a portrait of my grandfather's cat, Flash, who has an interesting pattern on his back which resembles a broken heart: 

I'm also working on this larger digital piece of two lovers surrounded by foliage - I was thinking about leaves from all of the places I have lived in the past 5 years, and incorporated leaves from Maryland, magnolia leaves from Houston, aspen leaves from Colorado, and forget-me-not shaped flowers from Leadville. I'll probably work on this one a bit more .... 

I haven't made as many romantic paintings or drawings this year, not sure what it means, I both struggle and resist in putting words to most of my best art - this is probably why. 

Lastly it's been a great couple weeks of Tilted Sun being released and out in the open. The comic launched on May 1 and releases a new page every Tuesday and Thursday. It's also featured on the top level navigation of this website. For some reason I always leave Tilted Sun for last, I'll have to not do that next time! 

Tilted Sun is free to read online! Tether Orbs, cyber horses, electric guards, spy birds, and all kinds of cool things await you in the world of Tilted Sun! 

Until next time ... excelsior!