Grid Journal of Trees at Huntington State Park (crayon and marker) by Polly CastorI’ve continued to enjoy grid journaling, and this time of year choosing a subject was obvious: trees. Shown above, I more recently did trees from my walks at Huntington State Park, and shown below, at the end of October, I did a page spread of trees from our yard.
To make this project simple and portable, I chose a minimum of materials: my artist crayons and some Posca markers. What I didn’t expect was to love the combination of these two so much!
I own these two materials for very different reasons. The Posca markers embellish, tidy up, and sign my acrylic work, and as actual acrylic paint, they go over anything. I own the wax artist crayons for wax resist techniques I use in paintings and collage papers. I have never used these two on their own in combination, and I was delighted by both the process and result. I have continued past the grid journal now, and painted another tree on its own in this method on a large piece of paper (shown below).
Also shown below are photos of these materials. The wax artist crayons are Caran D’Ache NeoColor I (buy my set of 40 here). They are buttery, and nicer in coverage than your average Crayola; they can go down densely, and pack a good color punch. You can layer them for more variety of color, and they come in a nice red tin container for easy portability. I’ve been sketching in each vignette with these first, and finishing with some emphasis and mark making with the acrylic Posca pens (buy a set of eight here). (And since someone will ask, the sketchbook I’m using is this one.)
I hope you give it a try. It feels more like painting than drawing, but is a no fuss, no mess approach you can take or do anywhere. This is a great way to quickly get down the essence of an image or idea.
Grid Journal of Trees from Our Yard October 2022 (crayon and marker) by Polly Castor
Thanks Polly
So many creative ideas to try.