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.