On Chinese Newsprint

This is my second loose, playful sketch on a page from a Chinese newspaper. The shapes, color and beautiful unrecognized characters of varying sizes all inspire me. The puffin was the first element, then other things joined in. Instead of drawing lines as I usually do, I just did a random jump into my jpeg collections and wandered and plucked things without overthinking it. I love all these animals and objects. I let my artist’s eye decide where things belonged, what scale to draw them at, and when the drawing was done. Then I inked it quickly with a Sharpie and then Speedball liquid ink. Then some white acrylic (anything truly white had to be acrylic, and I had to paint over Henry VIII’s face, for sure). Then watercolor, then color pencil, then more ink, then more paint… I had a lot of fun doing this one.

All the fish are real species.

22 1/4 X 21 inches - Mixed media on Chinese newspaper