A Witness to the Work: A Sheet of Brushmarks
December 13, 2013
It is the Yuletide season, and my preference would be to be applying myself to making gifts and cards and maybe even fruitcake. But the fact is: I have a big project I'm pushing to complete. Yesterday it occurred to me that I haven't posted anything here since I painted my pomegranate over a month ago. So what can I post for viewers that is some indication that I've been working in my studio? Not the actual artwork, but something I might have fonder feelings for: the sheet of paper on which I unload some paint from my watercolor brush, or test a color before lighting into the artwork itself. I call it a witness sheet. I've always loved these witnesses to the work, whether they be pen marks for calligraphy pieces or brushmarks for illustrations. This job is an illustration job with a little bit of lettering incorporated.
If you look at this and think, "That must be a rather large project to have so many colors and dabs," you would be correct. I started it in August with a site visit to a water treatment plant. Definitely not my area of expertise so the subject matter has provided me with an educational opportunity, shall we say. Hence all the blue dabs on the witness sheet on my drawing board (water). The final artwork will be published here after it is installed.