Mallard Duck: Female

Continuing work on the female mallard.

Building the second layer of color. This surface will take even the cheaper pencils, the studio level and throw-away pencils, so I am using them on the bottom layers.

I did do a wash of solvent, especially on the water to mimic watercolor and the fluidness of water.

 

 

Although the complimentary colors are beginning to be covered, their inclusion is adding to the richness of the final colors. This will give much more dimension to the duck than the photograph.

Graying Out The Background

 

Still working on the mockingbird at the feeder

 

Once the blue back ground on my mocking bird drawing was dry I realized it was much too vivid. What you saw when looking at it, was the background, not the gray mockingbird.

 

The blue did not compliment, or complete the drawing, it competed or distracted from the subject. So it had to go.

 

But not completely. It needed to be grayed out. Rather than putting a wash of gray or black watercolor over it, or even a thin layer of orange (blue’s complement) I decided to use gray colored pencil, then blend it with the blue watercolor to mute but not eliminate the blue background.

 

While it will take hours to complete, it will be well worth the effort. The temptation to press down, to cover this large area quickly is great, but you have to resist it. A soft touch is also necessary. You will want to press down, using pressure to get the most complete coverage in one pass. This is not the best way. Slow and steady. Soft, even strokes will give the best coverage, most workable coverage.

 

For this background I did switch to Derwent’s color soft pencils, the Dove Gray. This is a medium toned warm gray. I like the color softs by Derwent because they are English pencils, a little thicker than my American or German made pencils. As such the cores are also a little thicker and not as subject to breaking as the thinner American and German pencils.

 

The background of gray went on fairly well. Watercolor does make a nice, medium toothed surface that takes the colored pencil much better than blank watercolor paper.

I am much happier with the overall effect, even though I have not yet finished blending in the background. You see the bird first here, which is what is important.

I am going to use a liquid medium to blend the gray over the blue for a smoother, more uniform look.

Blending Colored Pencil 2: Using a Stump or Paper Blender

 

 

Blending is a necessary step when using colored pencil. In this, it is much like painting. One method to use is the blending stump. This is a piece of formed newsprint paper. It can have either two pointed ends, the stump, or simply be a rolled piece of blank newsprint known as a tortillon. This has only one pointed end and is hollow. This is softer than the stump. Both have their good points and bad points. 

Now, using this stump will work. I know many artist who use these tools with many soft drawing medium. They can be quite effective, but also quite distinctive. It also has the danger of crushing the paper fibers, making erasure just about impossible. The tendency is to really bear down on the stump, and this is what will cause the fibers to crush.  

I am not saying don’t do this. I use this method a lot, but know what you are getting. It can be a very effective way to blend layers of colored pencil.

Note: What I show here are store bought, but you can make your own with clean newsprint. They are simply readily available and cheap enough not to be worth it to me.

 

I do try to keep my pressure lighter and use the friction of fast movement to blend the colored pencil. The binder is wax and there will be some heat from the friction.

 

A few pictures will show you the effects of using these paper blending tools. First is a picture of sparrow I drew in colored pencil. It is unblended and simply the layers of colored pencil on paper.

In this close-up you can see the unblended tail and wood of the feeder. You can see how grainy the surface is, and how unfinished it looks.

 

There is a small start to the blending in the right corner near the tail, but over all, does not look that good. OK, just not great

 

Clearly this is not a finished drawing.

 

You can see in this next photo, the beginning of blending, and how dirty the paper blender is getting! It is quite possible to move the pigment around simply with the blending tool.

 

Care needs to be taken not to over blend, or to contaminant adjoining colors. Usually, I do start with the lightest area to blend. For this, I started with the darkest to show you the effect better. But normally, start with the lights and work to the darks.

 

You can and should keep this tool clean. It is easy to do with a sandpaper pad. It will also keep the point on the tool sharper, and thus more effective.

You can see the previously dirty stump has been cleaned off by simply sanding away the dirt.

 

Note: You can also see that I will touch up the points of my colored pencils with the sandpaper pad.

 

 

 

Here, the right half has been blended with the paper blender.

 

It does a good job, but the effect is rather distinctive. You can usually tell when this tool is used.

 

Not bad, and the effect is good, if this is what you want.

 

Practice with them and you will learn how much and when to use this tool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This last photo is with the blending of the picture complete.  Blending the pigments does increase the saturation. You will notice that the wood is much darker after blending. No more pencil was added, simply the use of the blender. I also used the blender on the bird itself, to saturate the pigment of the feathers.

 

This is just one way to do this. there are still several more ways to blend colored pencil.

You can use various solvents and a color blending marker.

 

I will show you how to do this another time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pelican Encounter-Final

Well, after 10 days and many, many hours and many, many layers, it is done. I started this on March 11 and today is the first day of spring, March 21. But it takes as long as it takes. I am still not totally sure I am done.

Turned out pretty good, even Hubby, (surprise!) said so.

Now, the Verdict on the Colourfix.

I like it.


Pelican at Juno Beach
Susan Tschantz
c. 2015

It does have a lot of tooth, and you will find it eats the pencils. This is understandable, as it is designed for heavy use with charcoals and pastels. I suspect it leans heavily towards soft pastels.

I did enjoy finding a board that was already tinted and already had the marble dust(?) (I am not sure what they use for the tooth. I have used marble dust and gesso with acrylic paint to tint myself).

So in addition to the cost of the board, you will use your pencils rather quickly and will sharpen a lot! Really a lot!

I only have the final burnishing to do. I did use a stump to blend, which proved really useful. I did not find the use of a medium, like mineral spirits as useful on this board as on some surfaces. Wax bloom was not as evident either. and I might revisit the feet tomorrow when it has had time to set up a little.

Pelican Update

Spent an enjoyable half hour working on small details and blending the colored pencil on the Pelican painting.

It is starting to look like a pelican!

Unlike with liquid paint, when using colored pencils you must manually blend your pigments on the support. One reason a good strong support is necessary, and why standard drawing paper simply is not heavy enough for colored pencil.

Day three of the Pelican Project.

Working on the Colourfix is proving to be a mixed blessing. While the support is plenty strong enough for colored pencil, getting used to the strong tooth is a new experience. Not a bad one, just new.

Strangely, a tortillons work better than the harder stumps. Go figure? Maybe because the tortillon is softer than the stumps, better able to work on the sandy surface.

Getting that tint of salmon coloring over the white took some thought. Finally I did use a soft application of Terricota and Indian Red, both colors smear well when covered with a layer of the Prisma White. I find that the soft Prismacolor white blends and aids bleeding best. It is exactly what I needed in this instance.

I also used a rough, cheap bristle brush with a small amount of mineral spirits. After dipping the brush in mineral spirits, I wiped it off with a paper towel, so it was more of a dry brush effect.  This helped to simply tint the belly feathers, rather than color them with lines.

I am finished for the day, letting the painting dry completely before adding any more layers.

I have found that I need different techniques with this surface. The sandy tooth grabs the pigment more than I had been used to, so you do not need to work as hard to put down layers of pigment.

I also have not had any problems with wax bloom so far, which I do with the mat board I customarily use in my work. Doing the final polish on mat board takes time. We will see if it becomes a problem with this board. So far, not.

Pelican Encounter

Spent a relaxing 10 days snowed-in in Florida this winter. Another story.  

It was fabulous. While our home was pummeled with ice, rain, wind and snow we relaxed by a pool and took walks by the ocean.

 

Which leads to my new project, a striking portrait of Mr. Pelican. Actually, I have no idea of the sex. It might well be Ms. Pelican for all I know. I do know this bird-person took no guff from anyone. Stood its ground and proclaimed its independence.   

So Mr. or Ms. as the case may be, will become my next art project. 

My preference for tinted paper has lead me to explore many supports, and today I am trying a new one.  

Start of the drawing,
Image transferred and first layers of white and black

Colourfix Plein Air Painting Board made by Art Spectrum in Australia. I choose the blue haze tint, because it closely matches the sky in my reference photo. It is a heavily textured board, feeling like fine sandpaper. I have noticed already that it has a tendency to be smeary, which makes sense as it is designed for dry media like pastels and charcoal. Having the ability to smear and blend are important for these media. How it will respond to colored pencil is another matter.  

The support I am using is the 12” x 16” size. Matted to 16 x 20 it should make a good presentation.

 

As usual with Colored Pencil I did my first drawing on tracing paper, making what adjustments and corrections I needed, then using graphite waxless transfer paper, I transferred my Pelican to the Colorfix board. I traced lightly so I had very faint lines. This is necessary because I could already tell erasing was not an option on this board. 

You can see the tint of the board here and how it will serve as the background.

As I said, this board has the texture of fine sandpaper, and it does have plenty of tooth to hold many layers of colored pencil, which is good because it will need it! 

This time I did not start with a layer of watercolor pencil or graphtint, or ink tense. I usually to this, especially if I am working on a dark support. But I decided to see how colored pencil will perform on this surface.

 

So here it is so far:

 

 

 

Working with Charcoal

Charcoal

Charcoal is probably the oldest art medium there is. Maybe mud is older, but charcoal has endurance.

One way to get into this medium is to start with toned paper.

You can buy "toned" paper, ea. paper that comes in colors and tints, but working on paper you have toned yourself is very different.

This week students of the Renaissance Art Gallery got the chance to tone their own paper and learn about more than charcoal.

 

Each took a piece of what is essentially, white drawing paper. Using drafting dots, they secured their piece to the table, and after drawing an 8 x 10 drawing area on the paper began to tone the paper.

 

Using flat block of charcoal they applied a thin layer to the entire surface of the paper. This not over covered the paper, but revealed the grain or texture of that particular paper.

 

Discovery:  It isn’t “just paper” Each brand, type and press of paper has its own unique characteristics. These can enhance or fight your artwork, but now students are aware of it.

 

Then they were to take a paper towel and smear the charcoal all around.

 

Discovery: neatly folder towels and simply bunched up towels did give different results, as did spreading with your bare hands or with a stiff brush

 

Now on to the artwork.

 

We have various white objects for students to work from. A white candle, white rocks, a square white box, a white vase with white roses in it.

 

Yes they were all white!

 

Taking charcoal erasers, cotton swaps, brushes, vine and willow charcoal and blending sticks they were to remove/add charcoal to create drawings of these white object, but without drawing an outline first, simply start removing charcoal in the basic shapes.

 

Discovery: Notice the shades and shadows, follow the light patterns.

 

Working in Yellow with Colored Pencil

Working on my drawing of the Meadowlark, I am going on to the focus of the drawing, and leaving the background.

Working in Yellow

For the singer, I treated the railing as more on the level with the bird itself. The background sky was done in cloud blue and slate blue, with tonings in white. Again, I did use a solvent to blend these colors together, creating that blue-gray sky I so vividly remember.

But on to the main event

The railing is very dark. It is an aged stained warped railing on one of those raised walkways over protected prairie land. So I started with a layer of white pencil. It might seem silly to put a layer of white on white paper, but it works. This creates a milky base for the darker colors I will work in on top. Then I started to grain it with light lavender. I am building color and texture here as carefully as I would in an oil painting. Maybe more carefully. Working back and forth between browns, I layer on Sienna, raw umber and more lavender. I use a paper stump to blend these together. I don’t want these melted together like the background, but to remain distinct colors as you would have naturally in aging wood.

Then I am ready to start on the bird. This is a western meadowlark. I had to post a photo on http://birding.about.com/ to make the identification; a very helpful site for nature artists.

As with the cardinal, building the correct colors and intensity of colors takes time and the use of several different colors.

Now this bird looks to be simply yellow, white and black. Again, there is nothing simple about it. The yellow is a complete yellow, very saturated, but also because of lighting and the fact that it is a real, living bird in a natural environment, there is variation is color value. The breast in the sun is bright, while that which is shaded or receding tends to be a bit cooler. So I started with lemon yellow, followed with sunburst, and slightly cooler, although not dark like an ochre. These were also blended into each other, so there are no hard edges between values.

As for the black banding, this also needs to vary from dark intense black, through raw umber and even some sienna. The black on the throat was built up with indigo blue and black, but this time without the Tuscan red underpainting. I needed to pick up other undertones on this one.

The shading on the belly presented another problem. Working on another sheet, I experimented with various ways of creating this shading. Simply using black or gray did not, of course work out well. Neither did using lavender. It just did not look real. A combination of raw umber and sage green gave the best results, after carefully blending it in. This layer was laid on very lightly and worked in as I went. By now, there were sufficient layers to allow me to do so.

As you build up colored pencil, you will tend to get a wax “bloom”. This is an almost chalky layer of wax that will separate a little when you use multiple layers of pigment. It is natural, and all artists learn to deal with it. Simply buffing it out does not harm to the artwork.

I actually used the wax bloom the next day to work in the shading, so I was able to make it look very natural, as if it is just the natural shading of a bird in the sun. You can often use what appears to be a drawback of a medium to your advantage.

Colored Pencil Drawings-The first true Layers

First True Layers

For the actual colored pencil paintings I switched from watercolor pencils to professional quality fully pigmented pencils. These are wax based, and predominately Prismacolor. I really like the quality of pigments used. Even the white pencils have coverage, which if you have used colored pencils you know is not always the case.

The Singer

For the singing bird, I set out Cloud Blue, True Slate and True Blue. I want the blue-gray sky I remember. The first layer was cloud blue, followed by a layer over the top half of the painting of true slate. After blending these two together, I decided to leave off the true blue. It just was not the color I wanted.

My mat board is mounting on my drawing board, not my drawing table. Yes this allows it to be portable, but it also allows me to rotate the board as I go. This avoids any directional ness in the background, very important when you are working with more or less solid colors in the background. Using short circular strokes and rotating the board is the best way to get this that I have found.

Commanding Cardinal

I want all the focus on this close-up of the cardinal. I am afraid if I add too much background detail it will distract from the bird, and the artwork would loose its focus. Sometimes you can put too much in a work of art.

So I am simply going to put in a yellow-green moddled background. The color will support the cardinal, but there will be nothing to distract from him. I used several different greens and two yellows. Unlike oil paints, I find it is a good idea to have as many colored pencils as possible for depth of color. These are put in random swirls and carefully blended together.

I concentrated at this point on the backgrounds not the subjects. Once I had color where I wanted it, I did use solvent and a cotton swap to “melt” the background colors together. Do this carefully, as this become totally permanent and cannot be lifted after it dries.

Drawing Reference - Commanding Cardinal

Commanding Cardinal

Background – Reference Photo

The cardinal, on the other hand is a frequent visitor to the bird feeder outside my living room window. He has been known to let us know when the feeder is empty.  The background in the photo is out of focus leaves and lawn. I do have many pictures of said leaves and lawn and could easily add these details. But I am not going to.

I want all the focus on this close-up of the cardinal. I am afraid if I add too much background detail it will distract from the bird, and the artwork would loose its focus. Sometimes you can put too much in a work of art.

So I am simply going to put in a yellow-green moddled background. The color will support the cardinal, but there will be nothing to distract from him.

Erasable Colored Pencils –

Erasable Colored Pencils – 

These are really good for getting down your basic shapes and ideas without using graphite pencils, carbon or other transfer papers. These pencils allow you to draw with colored pencil. To think with them. Because they are actually erasable you can improve your composition and true shapes without extensive lifting and scraping, or contaminating your surface with graphite.

They tend to be a bit harder than Professional Colored Pencils, more like what you were given as a child, but became frustrated with. But unlike those, you can erase these. They take a point very well, which does improve on the drawing, but you also have to be a bit careful. A little too much pressure, and you can dent the paper/support surface. They are also a bit lighter in saturation when you use light pressure, but you would expect this.

Drawing in Pencil of
the Singer

I draw a lot of wild life, most of it rather small, so I find the light gray, more a taupe-y color, very useful in defining basic outlines.

Doing the underpainting in the erasable is also a plus, you can block in the basic shapes and see if the design is really working. If it needs adjustment, you can erase rather than having to abandon it and start again. Once the objects are lightly blocked in it is much easier to check your drawing.

Drawing and Underpainting of The Cardinal