Oak and Linden art tutorial

In August 2010, I signed up for the Sketchbook Project 2011.  I altered the original moleskine notebook and hand stitched it myself with drawing and watercolor paper.  My finished sketchbook will be added to the permanent collection at the Brooklyn Art Library.

I thought I'd go into detail about how one of my pen drawings for the sketchbook project 2011 was done.  The main materials I used were pencil, sakura micron pens, rice paper, dictionary paper and acrylics. 

I love working with rice paper.  It is versatile and wonderful to use in collage works.

The "Oak and Linden" pen drawing is inspired by the story of Baucis and Philemon who wished to be oak and linden trees intertwined upon their death.  I've used "Baucis and Philemon" for the tutorial below.


The Process

I drew the portraits of myself and my husband in pencil from an old photo taken when we were budget travelling through Mexico.  Lots of good memories from that trip!

preliminary sketch for Baucis and Philemon

Then I placed tracing paper over the original drawing and created another drawing similar to a stencil drawing.  The rice paper is somewhat transparent and can be placed over the tracing paper to outline the stencil art.  That is one more reason I like rice paper:  when you adhere it to your substrate, you can control how visible the layer beneath the rice paper shows through.

drawing done and ready to be adhered

After allowing a light wash of acrylic to dry,  I adhered rice paper drawing to the sketchbook page.  In the image below, the words are still visible through the couple's portrait.  I added acrylic to the faces to give shadow and form.  I also filled in the spaces of the stencil drawing. In the background, images and words from the dictionary paper remain semi-visible.

 
For the completed work below, the lines were drawn free-hand and practically spontaneously.  When I got to the top of the portrait, I added two triangular shapes which seemed to be perfect as the roots of the trees.  Below is the drawing that is in the sketchbook I am sending to the Brooklyn Art Library. In the near future, prints will be available in my GalleryJuana.etsy.com shop.

Oak and Linden I