Well, that didn’t work out quite the way I planned. The one I thought I’d like, the rooster on the sanded paper, turned out muddy in the end with a blah background, and the one I wasn’t certain of, on Duralar, found a home (my husband asked for it). So now I need to draw another rooster. No trouble there—it’s a favorite subject.
A little bird told me that someone may want a rooster drawing, so I’m making a few attempts in colored pencil, one on Uart sanded paper and one on Duralar. I like both surfaces quite a bit, but I think I botched the background on the sanded paper.
I think I found the all-time best hand-held pencil sharpener as long as the pencil is fairly standard sized. It’s the Musgrave NJK double-bladed sharpener. Honestly, I can’t believe how pleased I am with this purchase. It’s like butter. If it could fit larger pencils, it’d be perfect. My Caran d’Ache luminance pencils just barely fit.
I snapped several pictures of this robin by the edge of a river, but the finished drawing looks rather otherworldly as though a robin would never be in that location. Metalpoint gives everything an otherworldly feeling.
It’s hard to photograph metalpoint as it reflects light. On the drawing above, I used a fiberglass stylus to erase highlights.
