I should have painted this cactus for the Southwest Challenge for August. I have such a hard time getting excited to paint from photos. I sketched in the big book with an Micron and Zig pens. I figured at the very least I would sketch and in the big book to fill another page. Yay!
A new cactus bloom for me from Kay's photos. Very simplified, I didn't include any of the background. It is about 8 x 10 on the page. The paper is white, I didn't have very good light and the book is too big to scan my sketches.
I need to sketch something red for the Hunt. Kay put up a photo of bell peppers red and green which I thought of doing in pastel. Won't work for the Hunt as the sketch has to be from life, not photos. Hmmm.
Day before yesterday I sketched in the big coffee table book as well. I was at my computer for Enid's pastel class. We were given some time to paint and I didn't have any pastel ready to paint so I just sketched the front door. Was that cheating? Hmmmm.
Another page in the book done! Number 4, keypad for Scavenger Hunt 689 which I'm hosting.
Enid's class was interesting and good for me. My computer actually stayed connected for the hour and a half. Surprise. Enid has been painting icebergs. The colors and textures are amazing. You can see some on her page. enidwood.com She was using a variety of pastels including pan pastels. She demonstrated how using the sponge with pan pastels can smooth out some of the texture. She was using hard and lost lines along with dark and light colors and values to bring out the texture. There was some beautiful transparency in the ice as well. Fun to see. And, I got to virtually see a few other artists. It is always good to work with other artists. We had a show and tell at the end to see what others are working on.
*** ** *** ** ** *** ** ***
I ran across an interesting idea to use alcohol to blend colored pencil. Maybe that would make it go faster for me. It is a technique that requires practice. Maybe it would work good on the Pastelbord to fill in the tooth of the surface. I will check it out. It looks like you could lift some color as well. Would that work for highlights?
You can read about it on the Empty Easel blog.
https://emptyeasel.com/2012/07/16/how-to-blend-colored-pencil-drawings-with-rubbing-alcohol/
Don't forget to come back here.
5 comments:
you can use pretty much any solvent on colour pencils, the more pigment put down the better but it does def speed things up
I know some people did use pastel board and it worked like you suggested
Jo I certainly like your cactus. They are such intriguing plants. I have read about others using alcohol with their colored pencil work. It seems to take great patience to work in that medium. Hope you have a super weekend. Hugs!
Jennifer Rose, thanks for the advice to put down more color. I'm so impatient!
Debbie, Thanks.. Hoping to have a quiet weekend. Maybe I will do more colored pencil and watercolor when I get the patience I ask for. LOL.
You do great pastel cactus. I saw some nice photos of NM cactus on the Photos and Memories Facebook page. I screenshot them to give them a try, but they are pretty busy.
I have heard of alcohol or mineral spirits to blend colored pencil. It seems like I tried it, but it was not so good for me. Maybe I needed more pigment as Jenifer Rose said.
Thanks, Bag Blog, I just have to find patience. I've said before that Gene had a sign in his office that said, "God, grant me patience .... and I mean right now."
Post a Comment