In the first post, I briefly described my creative session with children Doroteja (8) and Domas (5). Later, I used the drawings by children, their stories and photographs to create 10 different ideas for a Neverland Portrait. Out of these ideas, the family chose their favourite – Doroteja and Angry Fish. The video below briefly shows the whole story of how this idea came about.
In this and future posts, I will talk about the further development of this idea and its various painterly versions.
I decided to paint the whirlwinds of the fish body with a pipette. I discovered this technique while still studying at university using bottles of finished glitter glue.
Drawing with a pipette requires practice. First, you need to dilute the paint with plenty of water so that the paint can flow quite easily from the narrow opening of the bottle. However, you cannot dilute the paint too much, as this will make the line appear too dim.
When working with a pipette, you need to estimate at what speed to draw the line and how strongly to squeeze the bottle so that the line comes out in an even thickness and, ideally, narrows down at the end.
Drawing should be done quickly, because in the drawing by Doroteja, lines with felt-tip pens were drawn with enthusiasm. If I tried to redraw them slowly, my cautiousness would be visible in the lines themselves.
In general, I noticed that if you need to copy something in painting (or even in other art media), you should not try to do it as precisely as a computer, but try to convey the same energy, because the human eye does not notice slight differences in the general pattern.
In order to convey the energy of the lines of the fish that was drawn by Doroteja, painting with a pipette was the best technique. Neither a brush nor an ink pen could create such long, even and continuous lines. Because if the paint ends before the end of the spiral (and the paint on the brush and feather ends quite quickly), it is almost impossible to extend it again without leaving a mark. Both the thickness of the line and the movements of the hand change slightly when drawing for a second time.
When working with a pipette, too, this can happen – the paint ends unexpectedly. In this case, when trying to extend the line with a second go, an uneven mark will also be seen, but not as visible as it would have been when working with a brush.
Did I manage to draw the perfect spiral lines? Not really. I have made all the mistakes I mentioned in different places and they can be seen when taking a closer look. I didn’t worry about it because the paintings at this stage of the project are just drafts. However, it is already possible to get the impression that a well-executed painting is like a performance – you have only one chance to leave a mark on the painting with the right energy and good brush strokes. If you try to fix it, that will be visible.
On the other hand, it is wonderful to realize that in the simplest type of line you can see the energy and emotions conveyed by the artist.
