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!