The Budget Beast: Lab Book #24

2021 and 2022 was quite a time for doodling apparently, in my lab book margins. I use the lab book to record details of meeting, experiments, ideas, results and other management information. This is the second of three paintings done from the plethora of lab notes. 

The Budget Beast: Lab Book #24, watercolour 22 x 30" Strathmore 400 series, January 2023 (No. 3355)

Here are some crops and other thoughts:

Crop 1 Laboratory notebook number 24 actually contained an enormous number of doodles. I completed "The Web we Leave" and still had doodles to spare. These are two crops from another full-sized abstract painting done from the doodles in lab book #24. In the middle of last year my laboratory was having a bit of a budget crisis and some of the notes and doodles reflect this difficult time. There was an inordinate number of tentacles, creatures, and elaborate squiggles which really challenged my painting ability. In the crop above, you can see the intricate brushwork depicting a tangle of organic forms

Crop 2 In this crop one of the characters can be seen, she has little faces peering out of her eye sockets. To paint the outlines, I used prussian blue (PB27) with some touches of phthalo blue red shade (PB15). The plan was to colour it in based on the old print by Hokusai called Red Fuji, however, when the outline was complete, it felt intense enough and I did not do any further colouring. This Strathmore 400 series paper was fantastic for this calligraphic-style. The brush was a number 2 sable, slightly larger than the number 0 I used in the last painting. Amazingly, there are enough doodles for a third such painting, but I will paint on the back of an old painting instead of using a new piece of paper. When the sun comes out I will get a picture of the complete painting, or maybe on the weekend I can set up my studio lights but they are not the greatest for taking photos indoors. Each crop is only about 1/6 of the painting. 

 

Crop 3 Creatures and Title