I haven’t felt much like sketching or painting until the past few days. We discovered a new park, and I snapped a photo of what I think is an American Tree Sparrow. My photo was a little blurry, but I had enough detail to finish this drawing.
This is in colored pencil—Pablo and Derwent drawing—on a background of Neocolor II. I used Pastelmat in a yellow orange color.
Another tutorial from the virtual instructor complete. I loved how it turned out. This one is a Bluejay on Pastelmat paper using Pablo colored pencils and Panpastels for the background. I think the instructor used polychromos pencils, but the only oil-based pencils I have are the Caran D’Ache Pablos.
I was once told that referring to colored pencils as oil or wax is incorrect because they all have both oils and wax in them. Some have more at different points in processing. It helps me to think about colored pencils in terms of being hard or soft. With the pencils I have, Pablos are the hardest and the Derwent Drawing Pencils are the softest.
Before this project, I wasn’t fond of the Pablo pencils at all. They seemed light, and I didn’t like how they layered on paper. But once I used them on Pastelmat, I realized how much I like them. With Pastelmat, you can layer a lot, so with using a harder pencil you can layer light over dark. It’s a very painterly effect. I did use a few Luminance and Coloursoft, too, as I only have a set of 12 of the Pablos and needed an indigo blue and a dark gray.
This was the second tutorial the Three Little Birds series. I may tackle the third, but I need to buy some black paper. We’ll see.
I’ve been using the Conte Pierre Noire pencils for multiple sketches as I keep filling pages as part of #sketchendeavour on Instagram.
I bought the Conte Sketching Kit, which has several dark pencils as well as a few graphite and pastels.
After sketching this one of my horse, Pete, I used his same pose in a barn painting. I used pastels and dark drawing pencils on Pastelmat.
I needed to start new new sketchbook as my small 6″x8″ Stillman & Birn is full. I decided to use a bigger size, so I’m now working on 9″x12″ paper. I think it’s a great size for landscapes.
I’m experimenting with toned paper. The shell and grapes are from tutorials.