E and Elephant

This project is part of a watercolor and ink study in lettering styles and object styles beginning with that letter. Each week will focus on one letter and one object beginning with that letter in order to collect and practice various artistic styles and alphabets.

This week, I studied the letter E and elephants. With E, I continued to work on consistency with my letters, both dip pen and watercolor with ink. The alphabets are taking shape nicely. Each week, as I draw my letters, I pull out previous letters to make sure certain traits stay true to the style.

The letter E is one of my favorite letters. It has so many possibilities for flourishing. Angled or round, each E gives many opportunities for casual styles and elegance.  

When I first settled on elephant to go with E, I experienced a moment of fear. I wasn’t sure I could capture these great animals on paper. When I think of elephants, I see them meandering as families across plains and stopping at waterholes to play and drink.

Then, as I looked through pictures of elephants, I also found them painted. Painted elephants. Not painted as I paint them but covered with painted designs and adorned with gold and bright fabrics. Brilliantly decorated in India for the Elephant Festival. I don’t know much about the festival, but the animals looked magnificent and begged me to paint them with this study.

Here are my attempts and observations from this week’s study.

Dip pen lettering Styles

• Did I mention I love the letter E? I found myself wanting to focus on flourish styles instead of letter styles. Maybe that will have to be a separate study. I wanted to do 8 over and over again with different flourishes.
• Beware my favorites. Maybe it would be easier to mention my least favorites. 13 ugh, 14, 15.
• 18 and 19 styles consistently grab my attention

Watercolor and dip pen Lettering Styles

• This time that gray E really makes sense. Definitely elephant colored.
• Love the fiery flourished E. Fun to draw and fun to look at!
• The style in the bottom left displays a stormy ink. It comes from a sample set of inks I ordered from Goulet Pens. The set has a wonderful variety of ink colors. This one shimmers with gold like stardust.
• I also tried out finetec watercolor in sterling silver for my mermaid E scales with a much better result than using my gelly roll pen. What a shine!

Elephant Styles

• How do you know when to stop painting? When you run out of time, of course! I didn’t know just how fascinating elephants could be to study. I had to stop before I wanted to finish painting.
• The top left turned into my least favorite of the six pieces. I enjoyed using my Derwent inktense watercolor pencil in charcoal grey and Pentel water brush. It’s a quick and easy combination and would work perfectly for travel watercolor projects.
• The top right shows some henna patterns on a gray background. Details are time consuming, but what an effect!
• The middle left shows a bull elephant headed this way. I love how the background shows plain colors blended in grassy brushstrokes.
• The bottom left displays an elephant ready for the Elephant Festival.

I hope the Letter F will keep up with the E and elephant study. I wonder what it will bring. Do you have any ideas?

Here is a link to past letters.

If you want to join the study,  just post yours on Instagram with #patchesofordinary and tag me @joannneegroff so I can see them too!

Happy studies!