Three Sandpipers

February 27, 2022 horsenettle No Comments

By the third (top) one, I lost my steam and so it’s the least finished.

My favorite pencil to use? Tombow Mono. My favorite drawing of the three? The bottom one.

All measure 9”x12”, are on Stonehenge Legion paper, and are in graphite. The bottom is Faber Castell Pitt Matt pencils. The center is graphite, Tombow Mono Homograph. The top is a mix of carbon and graphite, Staedtler Mars Lumograph.

They all have their pluses and minuses, with darks going for the Mars Lumograph, expressiveness with graphite, and lack of shine for the matt pencils. Happily, they all work with each other, unlike charcoal, and so I can imagine using these together down the road. But maybe not with another Sandpiper drawing, although it is pretty adorable.

Categories: Art Pencil

Tags: art, bird, drawing, graphite

Another Graphite Sandpiper

February 26, 2022 horsenettle No Comments

A second drawing of a Solitary Sandpiper, also in graphite. This one was done with Tombow Homo-graph Mono pencils. I think they’re my favorite set of graphite pencils, running a little harder than many, and they don’t smear quite as much, either.

My goal is to compare a few different pencil sets by drawing the same subject. Next, I’ll use a darker set, the Staedtler Mars Lumograph, which have more carbon.

Categories: Art Pencil Uncategorized

Tags: art, bird, drawing, graphite

Faber-Castell Pitt Graphite Matt Pencils

February 22, 2022 horsenettle 2 Comments

They have a long name, and I waited a long time before buying them, but I finally did, and they took a long time to get here, but they finally did. What’s so special about these graphite pencils? They’re matt, meaning they have very little shine. Plus, they’re on the dark side with a 14B, supposedly the world’s first.

9”x12” graphite on Stonehenge Legion. I took nearly 80 pictures of this sweet, little Solitary Sandpiper, so that’s why it keeps showing up in my sketches.

So, how did I like them? Okay, but I found them hard and I needed to go over areas several times to get the dark values. This set has a 14B, which didn’t really look all that dark to me. So, although I enjoyed the lack of shine—I actually do like graphite shine but only when I do it on purpose—I found them to be less astounding than I had imagined them to be.

I’ll keep using them and who knows? Maybe they’ll be like my oil pastels, and I’ll pull them out in a year and think they’re as special as this Solitary Sandpiper I keep drawing.

Categories: Art Pencil

Tags: bird, castell, faber, graphite, matt, pencils

Fifteen Years Blogging

November 28, 2021 horsenettle No Comments

How many can claim a fifteen-year old blog? Happy anniversary to this little corner of the web where I’ve documented all the arts and crafts I’ve obsessed about since 2006. Even with that strong blogging habit, at some point over the past year I slowed down on blog posts and increased Instagram posts. Instagram is easy and popular, and it’s all too easy to forget about writing. Recently, I decided I missed keeping up this ancient blog and it needed an update—and perhaps Instagram needs to go away. Long story short, you cannot control reels on your feed, and I found many objectionable.

So, here’s an update on the ol’ blog. I’ve not been as artsy lately, but I’ve still managed several sketchbook sketches…