Gourds for Autumn

Sorry I haven't updated in a few days, I usually only post when we finish a piece in my classes. This last one was an interesting experience, because the preparation for the piece took longer than the actual drawing did. An acrylic prepared ground is paper that has a coat of primer applied first, then anywhere from 5 to 20 coats of acrylic paint on top, in various colors, textures, and thicknesses. Basically, you paint until it looks good. Here are the two grounds that I prepared last week:

This is a fairly haphazard process. After the primer's dry, you grab a paintbrush, you paint. Pretty much any color you want, adding texture with sponges, paintbrushes, dripping water on it, scrubbing it, etc. You just have to keep the paint layers fairly thin, otherwise the paper gets really rubbery.

Once those were dried and flattened out, we started drawing. On this type of ground, it's best to use both additive and subtractive drawing. Additive in this case being charcoal and pastel used to create line and shading, and subtractive being sandpaper and denatured alcohol to create texture and more shading. It's a really fun process, since the texture that you've already prepared does most of the work when it comes to detail and shading. The rest is just icing on top. And here's the finished product:

(I'll try and post the other one next week.)