More fun with colored pencils

 The colored pencil drawing challenges just never seem to end, which is a good thing indeed.  Last week's project was to figure out how to depict flames, because I wanted to draw a version of this dramatic moment from Good Omens:

This is Crowley in front of his best friend Aziraphale's burning bookshop, when he believes that all is lost.  I worked from two reference photos, one with the expression I wanted, and the other with the flames that I felt worked best.

I tested three solvents before starting this piece:  mineral spirits, baby oil, and rubbing alcohol. These are the three that most colored pencil artists recommend.  After spending a couple of hours testing them all, on different papers and with different brushes and various color combinations, I decided the mineral spirits (which I'd been using exclusively all along) worked best.  Oh, well.  That's how it goes sometimes.

Here is what the face looked like before adding solvent:

And here it is after brushing solvent in:

The process involves layering -- put down color, blend with solvent, put down more color, blend again, more color, etc., and on final layers, I usually used a tool called a colorless blending pencil instead of more solvent, as the blending pencil tends to give a smoother overall finish.  Complex technique!

The hardest part of this piece was trying to match the odd purple/red/brown color of the bookshop:

No such color existed in my colored pencil collection, so I tried various combinations of reds and purples and browns -- and the only thing that got close enough turned out to involve layering and blending FOUR colors.  Argh. This was extremely tedious, and it still didn't match it exactly. Sigh.

Next, I taught myself how to depict flames, and to also add a bit of fiery glow to areas of the face.

The method I came up with was to layer a very light cream color over the entire flame area, and then add various yellows and oranges over that in selected areas.  I added solvent over everything to blend it, and then added another layer of cream over the whole area, rather thickly.  Next, I used an eraser to take out color where I wanted the yellows and oranges to show through the cream, using varying pressure so that bits of yellow and orange wound up showing through in patches and streaks. 

Finally, I took some central areas of the remaining cream sections down to the white of the paper, or nearly, and then burnished everything with the colorless blending pencil.  I'm happy with the way this turned out.

SO that was quite the project!

Then I took a break from my Good Omens obsession to do a Zoom sketch meetup with the Seattle folks.  We drew this bighorn sheep, which I did in ink and watercolor:

And of course, I spent quality time with the Hounds, who spend a lot of time practicing looking adorable.

Have a great week!

It Helps If You Know What You're Doing

 First, this is the dining table:

I used to do all my art work here, but none of the chairs were ergonomically good, and I got back and leg pains, so now I'm using the couch/coffee table, which is less than ideal.  But I persevere in my pursuits, which lately involve learning all about colored pencils.

I'd done a few portraits of the Good Omens characters, but didn't like the way the colors blended (or rather, failed to blend well).  So before starting this one (of Aziraphale the angel from a scene set in 1793), I found a YouTube tutorial on colored pencil blending techniques.  It was quite instructive, and I tested out several methods, including the use of solvent (mineral oil), applied with a watercolor brush.  

The results made me very happy:

Then I took a short break to do another Zoom sketch session with the Seattle folks.  We chose an octopus:

But I couldn't just stop at the ink drawing.  I simply had to color it in -- the pencils were right there,  how could I resist?  It's possible that I went a little wild with the color:

Then I decided to test out my new knowledge of colored pencil techniques on a portrait of Pippin.

I also got some better paper suited to colored pencil work (Strathmore 400 Bristol Vellum).  It is sturdy and can handle a lot of layering, burnishing, erasing, and solvent use.

I also bought a pencil sharpener made specifically for the ones I use (Faber-Castell Polychromos oil-based colored pencils).  A very fine point is necessary for details such as this eye, which is 1/2" across.  The sharpener produces an extremely sharp point.

Here is the finished portrait -- his fur is complex!

Then it was back to the Good Omens character drawings.  Rather than do yet more simple portraits, though, it was time for a new challenge -- drawing a complex background.  The angel character lives in an old, cluttered bookshop, and I found this reference photo of him reading at his rolltop desk.  It had just the right amount of fun background to practice my new skills on.

The focal point would still be the character, of course.  

Here is the new coffee table workspace, though I had to return to the dining table whenever it was time to use the solvent, as it has toxic fumes and that's the only spot where I could open windows.  So I went back and forth many, many times.

In the reference photo, the background details are out-of-focus, which works well to highlight the character, and I tried to replicate that effect as best I could.  It was quite challenging, as I couldn't tell what many of the objects on the desk actually were, and so I simply replicated the colors and shapes and hoped it would look okay.

I was glad that he was wearing white gloves, as I hate drawing hands, and the gloves seemed a lot easier to deal with.  

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with this piece, though still have a lot more to learn about this medium.

Before tackling another complex picture, my plan is to test out other solvents, along with other papers and application brushes to see if I can figure out what works best for good blending.  It's a tricky process -- when the solvent is added, it doesn't just blend the pencil color, it also moves it around to some extent, depending on how much solvent is added and the way the brush is manipulated.  This can create wonderful effects -- or horrible ones that you don't want!  I'm looking forward to experimenting with this fabulous technique.

Happy Monday, and stay safe out there!

Spoiled for Choice

The first thing I try to determine, whenever looking at a possible artistic subject, is:  What should I use to draw or paint this?

This is not easy to figure out, since I have a TON of art supplies, and have never truly specialized in any particular medium.  So whenever my Seattle friends get together for a Zoom sketch session, and we choose a photo to work from, I scratch my head a lot while pondering, "ink?  watercolor? colored pencil? some combination? other??  what paper should I use..."   Yeah, there are just as many choices in surfaces as there are in media.  Argh.

For this koi picture, I fell back on the ink + watercolor method on mixed-media paper, which is my "go to" technique for most quick sketches and for all outdoor sketching.  It seemed to work fine for this subject.

For the next Zoom session, we chose a photo that showed palm trees in silhouette with a colorful sky, and I decided to use a brush pen with just a touch of watercolor.  You can use a brush pen to make a variety of line widths, from very thin to quite thick, and I liked the way this turned out.

Then I decided to do another portrait from Good Omens (no, I haven't gotten tired of drawing or painting those yet).  So far, I've done portraits using pencil, ink, watercolor, acrylic paints, or colored pencils.  The most successful pieces have been done with the colored pencils. I drew the character Aziraphale using those, and this time I did the character Crowley.

The photo was a bit too dark overall, and not as detailed as I like, but it was good enough to work from.  I like Faber-Castell colored pencils, which are oil-based (most colored pencils are wax based).  This makes them harder to blend smoothly, but unlike wax pencils, they tend to keep a finer point longer and they don't break easily.  

I lightened the overall values considerably.  It was a challenging and fun expression to draw.

The strokes appear rough (this is hot-press watercolor paper), but they can be blended more by going over them with a white colored pencil at the end.

I'm happy with this one.  I've ordered some new colors, as the set I have doesn't contain enough shades that are useful in portraiture.  I also ordered some different papers that are more specific to colored pencil work.  

Of all the mediums I've tried so far in drawing or painting people, I like the colored pencils best. Now I'm thinking I might try using them for other subjects, too.  

Maybe I should use them to draw dogs....

Tricky subject, especially when they move!

Have a great week out there!

Is It Blursday Yet?

 It's been suggested (I saw it on Facebook) that those of us who can no longer remember what day of the week it is (due to being at home all the time) simply call every day "Blursday".  I'm all in favor of that!

So, I don't recall which day last week I went to the McNary National Wildlife Refuge, so it was probably on Blursday.  It was a fine outing with cooler weather and excellent birds.

Here are a couple of Pied-billed Grebes:

This Great Blue Heron was giving me the stink-eye.

The American White Pelicans were out in force:

There were lots of Barn Swallows zipping around and I tried to snap a pic of one in flight, but they move way too fast.  Here's a blurry one:

But they were also hanging out on a rooftop, nice and still:

There were several Great Egrets about -- they are far more common here than in the western part of the State.

They posed nicely for me.

And I even managed to get one taking off:

The Hounds also enjoyed the outing -- there are paved trails all round.

That was our most exciting outing for the week.  

As for art, I worked on some more portraits of the characters from Good Omens.  For the first one, I was using acrylic paint, but didn't have brushes small enough for details, so I went shopping:

These tiny brushes come in handy when working on facial features, especially when the face, in this case, is only two inches wide:

The second one I worked on was in colored pencil, where details are much easier to draw as long as one has a good pencil sharpener.  This portrait is 6" x 8":

I think I finished it on Blursday.

Have a great week out there!

Drawing, Home Decor, and PELICANS!!!

Drawing:  now I am going to have TWO virtual sketching sessions a week, with Tina and Nicole on Thursdays, and one with those two plus Michelle on Fridays.  Yay.  I think.

This past Thursday we chose a complicated staircase at a Japanese garden.  I tried doing it with colored pencil, which I don't think worked all that well, but it wasn't too horrid.  I finished first, so spent another five minutes or so drawing a frame around it, which probably doesn't work that well, either.  So it goes!

On Friday we drew a Colorado River Toad from a photo taken at the Woodland Zoo in Seattle.  This sketch was more successful--this time I used pencil and then added the shading using brush pens.  Brush pens are exactly that--an ink pen with a brush tip.  Some have a smaller, pen point at the opposite end, and most use water-soluble ink.  The brand I use, Tombow, has a range of both warm and cool gray shades from very light to very dark, which worked nicely for this subject.

In my latest home decor effort, I got this cool wall decal from the TV series Doctor Who to put in the dining room.

It's Doctor Who's name spelled in the language of his home planet, Gallifrey.  Very cool.

Finally, PELICANS!!!

I took the Hounds for a stroll in Chiawana Park over in Pasco, because that's where I most often see my favorite bird, and it did not disappoint.

One of them took off while I was zoomed in on it:

Too closely zoomed in, as it turned out....

These birds have nine-foot wingspans.  So much fun to watch when they take off or land.

We also survived a week of 100+ days, every day (I think the hottest one was 108).  Thank goodness for air conditioning!

Have a fun week out there (it is now "cooling" down to the 90s).