Experiencing Stillman & Birn's Zeta Series Sketchbooks - PART 3

After spending some time getting to know my new Zeta sketchbook from Stillman & Birn, I took it along on a family vacation to Maine. (To see Parts 1 & 2 of my review, click here and  here.) Although I packed several sketchbooks for the two-week trip, I found myself reaching for the Zeta more often than any of the others. I really like how my pens glide across that smooth paper, and I'm loving it for watercolor.

I sketched this sunset view of Otter Cove in Acadia National Park one of the first evenings we were in Maine...

7" x 7", Noodler's Lexington Gray ink & watercolor

To paint the sketch, I wet the entire page then dropped in rose violet, ultramarine blue, and cadmium yellow light, allowing the colors to merge a bit, and tilting the sketchbook to direct the flow of the washes on the smooth Zeta paper. I like how that initial wash helps to tie the parts of the painting together through color repetition.
   
Table salt and spattering added texture to the rocks in the foreground...

Detail of salt texture and spattering

Scratching in a few highlights made the water sparkle...

Detail of highlights scratched in with Xacto #11 blade

Stone Barn Farm, built in 1820, was just up the road from where we were staying. The historic old barn was just begging to be painted.

7" x 7", Pigma Micron pen & watercolor

I used the wet-in-wet "blooming" effect of watercolors to represent rusty patches on the the old metal roof of the barn.

Roof detail

And I was able to achieve some nice dry brush edges in the foreground, even though it's a bit challenging to do on the Zeta paper.

Foreground detail

Bar Harbor is a fun town with cute shops, great restaurants, and a village green complete with bandstand. The main street leads downhill to a picturesque harbor area, where I sketched this fountain. And, yes, that's a moose on top of the pink building!

7" x 7", Pigma Micron pen & watercolor

This next sketch is kind of silly, but it shows how I was feeling that day - relaxed and mellow, swinging in a hammock under a shady tree, looking out at the water, watching the sailboats go by...wishing I could stay there forever!

7" x 7", Pigma Micron pen & watercolor

On this sketch of Otter Point in Acadia National Park, I played around with many of the texturizing techniques from my sample pages. I spritzed alcohol, sprinkled salt, and did plenty of spattering.

7" x 7", Noodler's Bulletproof Black ink & watercolor

The effects of the alcohol and salt are subtle here, because my paint color on the sunlit rocks wasn't very intense. Spattering paint with my round brush and with a screen worked much better in this case. I even scattered shavings of watercolor pencil "lead" into the wet paint to add texture to the rocks. The prolonged drying time of the Zeta paper allows a more leisurely approach to adding salt, alcohol, watercolor pencil shavings, or additional paint colors.

Dark brown flecks of watercolor pencil, center right

Gray watercolor pencil shavings

Although I began my Zeta experience feeling like I had no control over what the paint was doing on the page, I gradually learned how to control it to get the effect I wanted. In the sky of the Otter Point sketch, I washed on cerulean blue, then lifted out the clouds with a damp tissue, and, after that had dried, added a light overglaze of pale gray. Layering wet-on-dry works just fine when you do it with a light touch.

Sky detail

But Maine wasn't all pine trees and rocky coastline. We also visited Thuya Gardens, tucked away on a hillside overlooking Northeast Harbor. The flowers were amazing, inspiring, and at least twice the size of similar plants here at home. The snapdragons were gorgeous!

7" x 7", Noodler's Lexington Gray ink & watercolor

Learning to paint on the Zeta paper took some practice. I'm glad I didn't let my first panicky experience discourage me from continuing. In just twenty pages of sketches, I learned how to better handle the slick paper and capitalize on its unique qualities. And I had a lot of fun just playing around. I hope my experiments have encouraged you to "test drive" a Zeta.

Detail

Stop back tomorrow when I'll be announcing a

Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook
GIVEAWAY!

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