16″x12″ water soluble graphite on Khadi paper
I love using water soluble anything, so this was a relaxing way to spend a rainy morning. I could only find two of my pencils, however, so I’ve misplaced three of them. I used the tin of Artgraph Viarco graphite as well the carbon “tile” from the same company which helped with large areas of darker value.
10″ x 14″, ink and colored pencil on Khadi handmade watercolor paper
I don’t know what to think about this one. It started as a drawing using brown ink, but it seemed too strong so I put in a background wash using a combination of blue and brown inks, which left a strange pink hue. Although I kept going with brown ink, I realized that I needed more color and swapped to a wide range of colored pencils in blues, browns, yellows, and greens. I think I could have kept going with this but simply stopped at this point.
This picture came from a series I took of a Blue Heron. I ended up stitching an embroidery of this same bird.
Several apple sketches later, I came to the conclusion that using pencil, ink, washes, and needing to erase makes the cotton or cotton rag papers my best choice. However, with some care, all of these beautiful papers would be a dream to use. If I stick with pencil only, the all-purpose cotton would be my choice.
I’m trying to decide how much paper, what thickness, etc., before I place an order.
This little blog is ending another year, so why not post one more post in 2023 filled with birds? These hummingbirds and juncos are done in graphite on Etched stone paper.
This year was filled with bird drawings and landscapes. We’ll see what 2024 holds. Happy New Year!
