Meat House

[meat]

Lol, that frog looks so grumpy! :)

The boats are really cool, especially the first one. Do you plot out perspective or rough shapes before going in with a pen and colors, or are you freehanding that?
I'm doubly impressed by those, since every single outdoor sketch including architecture or straight lines I tried so far was an utter fail :P You make it look really easy!

No a lot of planning. As soon as a spot looks like it has nice perspective tools (eg. a row of wooden pillar), and looks nice, I grab a seat, frame the view with my hands, then go straight into painting. I make more decisions while I paint.

Plein air involves more gut decision due to time limit. You practice image planning when doing slower, deliberate studies at home, then when you are faced with time/location limit, your planning becomes a fast, reflexive mental process. It's good practice to do something that makes you work fast where you cannot access reference. Sort of like studying in medical school then going out to be a field doctor in disaster zone, drives home what's really useful and how.

The first one I drew first with a waterproof pen. Second one I painted straight away without drawing, and added the pen lines last.

Here's irony for you, Lyra. I hate drawing buildings and anything hard surface, because it's hard to draw free-hand straight lines consistently for me. Straight edges are easier to make with a brush since the paint covers up the wiggly part, whereas drawing over a wiggly pen line just makes the line messier. Sometimes a blob of paint will suddenly look like a convincing building once you added a few details with pen at the end - some windows, a sign, a lamp, etc. I'd like to believe each time I do a building/hard surface, I'm slowly getting better until one day I can draw a damn cathedral. Try to enjoy challenging yourself. We all used to as kids, we can get back to it. But don't challenge yourself about stupid stuff like stuffing 24 dumplings in your mouth, or draw an entire sketchbook full of unmentionables.

By the way, do you get Faber Castell pen cheaper because it's made right there in Germany (no shipping)?