I’ve rarely worked toward a goal/deadline in my painting life.
(I do it all the time in my working life, above.)
That is, there is a desired result at the end for a “client,” here, as.
I am creating a series of images to raise monies to restore properties in need.
It has a very different feel to it, both in the choosing of the images
(in this case, historic images) and how I approach them.

I want to let go and simply see the subjects and respond;
Deadlines can be motivating or distracting….

I started with the most difficult subject for me,
especially as I tend to paint brightly colored or urban images:
Upper Sandy Guard Station Cabin, built in 1935.
It was chosen as one of Seven Endangered Places in 2014.

When approaching a deadline, I’ve always been a
get-the-hardest-part-out-of-the-way gurl.

I began with a pencil sketch that sat for the longest time because I simply had
no way into this subject matter… wood and stone and forest oh my… reference photos:

Then I bought the loveliest ink, De Atramentis Tobacco ink, which moves into your watercolors and is the sweetest brown and smells like the pipe that might have been smoked in this cabin.
I had my way into the image.
I began playing with the watercolors that I saw in the reference photos, and saw lichen and quin gold and diopside and peimonite and pipestone and hematite, all mixed into the tobacco ink!

I inked the moveable Tobacco, and a few hard lines in
De Atramentis Document Brown ink (waterproof).

I began watercolors, and from time to time I worked back and forth between
tobacco ink and watercolor, stopping to make forever a line in permanent ink.

These images are donated to raise money for restoration!

Strathmore or Fluid Cold Press watercolor papers, with a Pentalic 2B woodless pencil,
Noodler’s or Pilot pen with De Atramentis Tobacco ink,
Platinum Carbon pen with De Atramentis Document Brown ink; watercolor pencils;
Sennelier, Holbein, QoR, M.Graham, and Daniel Smith watercolors.

 ©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.