Jasmine Becket-Griffith Painting Tutorial: Butterfly Fairies

Part Three: Sketching and Refining

Part Three:  Sketching and Refining

There is no wrong way to sketch.  Sketching is where a lot of exploration and experimentation can happen, and each artist probably has their own way of approaching it.  In this installment, I will show you how I typically sketch.

Now that the gesso is dry, I can begin applying paint onto my panel.  First I like to do a full base paint coat of a neutral colour on top of the gesso.  This way I can make sure I'm happy with the surface of the panel, and I can quickly eyeball any rough patches or bumps, stray hairs, etc. that need to be sanded out.  I mix up a batch of this neutral colour (I usually create a colour similar to that of the tinted gesso for this sketching stage), and I keep this in an airtight container (an empty already-rinsed-and-dried bottle of paint, or a little toiletries / baby food jar, anything with a lid that closes) so that it will not dry too quick.  I'm only going to use this paint mixture during the sketching stage - not for any finished part of the painting that will be seend when it's complete - so it doesn't matter really what colour it is.  The important thing is that is is opaque (not see-through), because I'm going to use this mixture to "cover up" or "erase" any lines I don't want in my sketch when I'm refining the layout.

You see, I do not sketch with a pencil - I sketch in paint!  Lots of artists like to sketch first on paper or in a sketchbook or on tracing paper, etc. and then transfer their sketch onto the painting panel/canvas after the sketch is complete (using transfer paper, graphite, carbon paper, chalk, etc.).  I skip this step.  I am somewhat impatient when I paint and I don't like non-paint-related steps personally.  I don't like messy graphite or grubby pencil smudges, and I hate those little rubbery wormy things that come off of erasers when you try to erase pencil sketches.  I don't like the indentations that sharp pencils/pens make into the gesso.  This is very much a personal preference, it has no bearing on the finished image, and most other artist friends I have think I'm crazy, but this is the way I am accustomed to.  If you are an artist yourself and already have a sketching method you're happy with, you will probably ignore a lot of this installment - and that is fine!

Since I want this background/coverup paint mixture to be opaque, I am going to make sure I put some nice dense white paint in there.  There are many types of white paint, it depends which brand you use, which consistency of paint you use (tubes/bottles/fluid/gel) - but basically what I do is see which white paint has an opacity that can cover up an errant line or unwanted paint scribble in just one or two layers.  In this instance I'm using Golden's Titanium White, because I have a whole bunch of it and might as well use it up!  I've added a few drops of raw sienna, a little bit of yellow, and a little bit of ultramarine blue.   It looks very much like the tinted gesso mixture.  After painting a thin layer of this onto the panel, I close up the rest of the mixture in a bottle/jar so it won't dry out.

Now that my panel has a layer of paint, I'm ready to start sketching!  I like how the surface looks, nice and smooth but with a slight texture of paintbrush strokes.  If there had been a thick bump or unwanted sharp stroke, I could have sanded that out at this time, but it's not necessary in this instance.  

As I mentioned, I sketch in paint.  I usually make a mixture of blue and brown, with a little bit of water mixed in so it is quite fluid.  Instead of a pencil, I find a small thin brush.  For this rough sketch, I don't necessarily need the tiniest thinnest brush (that will come later when I refine the sketch), just a slender flexible slightly pointed brush that I can work with quickly.  For the past hour or so while I've been gessoing, etc., I've been thinking about what I want the painting to look like.  I can pretty much picture it in my head at this point, but I need to start blocking out the basic shapes on my panel before I can do a more accurate layout.  Since "Butterfly Fairies IV:  European Peacock" is intended to be the fourth in a collection of similar fairies, I have printed out the first three paintings in the series (shown at the beginning of this project on Wattpad), and taped them onto the wall by my desk, so I can make sure that this new painting fits the same proportion/stylization aesthetic as the previous three.  I know I want it to be one of my trademark "cute" fairies, with big eyes, a big head, and I know I want her to be seated.  Just like the other three paintings, she will have butterfly wings and I want butterflies flying around her.  I dip my paintbrush in the dark paint/water mixture and begin.