Tag: pencil

Pencil, Ink, and Watercolor

Ahhh.  Frustration.  Nothing like it to make you feel like crap!  Or to push you past your comfort zone.

Comfort zone:  Ink, watercolor washes.

Sort of comfort zone:  pencil drawing.

Disaster!  Warning!  Alarm zone:  Watercolors!  We won’t even consider these at present.

Comfort Zone

There are times when a good book helps you out a lot.  These are studies copied from a book by Claudia Nice.  What is good about these kinds of studies is that there is detail, but not a desire to be so realistic you are going to scream, if super realism is not your thing.  (It’s not mine.)  Here, you will fine stippling and hatching, and cross-hatching.  Each of these brings dimension and texture.  Add some watercolor washes, and it can really make things pop out.

Sort of Comfort Zone

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I have never really done any formal consideration of pencil drawing.  To me it seems counter-intuitive to think about pencil drawings beyond pencil drawings of a casual quality, like the scribbles and doodles students turn in with their work.  Rather, I looked at a drawing book from the library and had a deeper appreciation for the textures pencils can make.  As with pen and ink, stippling and hatching are at work – but so are circles and lines in varying directions, along with lines which depict texture, such as the little hook-shaped lines at the very bottom.

Alarm Zone!

Today, I filled up a palette with watercolor pigments.  Now, I am slowly studying washes and wet-into-wet.  I am also using a whole slough of pigments I have never used and dropping some of my old standbys.  I am feeling like crap.  But, perseverance.  Onward.

Whatever.

 

Turquoise

This morning I was going through a number of the blogs I enjoy reading. One is Cole Wardell’s. When I got there, since my last visit, she had a fun display of her art supplies. Pencils encased in wood! Watercolors! A knife!

On my desk, I have a container of Prismacolor medium pencils for drawing, still unsharpened.  Now all have points. They will come with me to work, and this will be my creative project focal point for today. In between whatever I do, I will get something done with these pencils, if only to remember what it is like to have one in my hand for something other than writing out notes.