Etzel

I feel good about this recent painting, because it’s the result of me heading outdoors with some real painting equipment for the first time ever. On the sunny Saturday all my favorite spots in the little town of Rapperswil were already mildly crowded, and I did not feel comfortable enough practicing with other company. I finally settled down just a little bit outside at the shore of Lake Zurich with Mount Etzel opposite. (13 x 21 cm, watercolor/paper, 2007)

Pattern from the Alhambra

This is a relatively simple tile pattern from the Alhambra in Spain. I had fun constructing it with a compass and straight ruler only, i.e. without measuring angles. (pencil/paper, 16 x 16 cm, 2007).

Post production

As an exception from the rule (keep digital post processing to a minimum), I played around with some of the filter effects that the GraphicConverter software provides. I most appreciated two that replace white and shades of gray with other single colors. Command names in the German version are as follows:

• Filter / Farbanpassung / Weißpunkt anpassen
• Filter / Farbeffekt / Einfarbig

Grace Kelly (continued)

Much better now, and this second time around I was also better able to discern (if perhaps not yet reproduce) more details in the original frame. Basically the face is in a sharp light from the left, and one must not be timid in applying shades of gray also to the skin, and adding more of a horizontal direction to the slim face. (20 x 20 cm, pencil/paper, 2007)

Here I was also interested in how the digital version comes out when captured with my Canon Digital IXUS 750 digital camera (as normal so far), as opposed to a scanner. I want to keep digital post processing to a minimum, and I did none other than reducing image sizes so far.

camera version	scanned version

Pond in the forest

This simple watercolor painting was inspired by the pond in the forest scene in Hayao Miyazaki’s animation movie Princess Monokoke. (21 x 29 cm, watercolors/paper, 2001)

Grace Kelly

I tried to sketch Grace Kelly’s face from a pretty shot that appears 18” into this YouTube video. Obviously I did not get it quite right yet (esp. lips, left contour), and I shall try again. (20 x 20 cm, pencil/paper, 2007)