Saturday, May 31, 2008

Colored Pencil?


I have very limited access to art supplies back in Boston so I've decided to revisit my collection of colored pencils. I have very limited experience working with said pencils & I know they can be finicky. Do any of you have any experience/have any helpful hints for me about working with them?

So this is a colored pencil version of my original sketch. I'm trying out the singing flowers...if I go this route I might have the entire picture plane taken up by brightly colored flowers...I'm not sure how I feel about the colored pencil...it did help to get a sense of this medium. I'm also not sure if my right hand will free itself from it's claw-like position...hope it's not permanent.

4 comments:

Sam said...

Hi Rachel-
I did a big project in colored pencil a while back. It depends on the brand you have, but typically you'll want to try mixing pencils, crosshatching, and blending. To get different colors, i found cross hatching to be real beneficial, it takes awhile, but its worth it. No matter what, itll have a colored pencil look. Unless your Julia Randall.

Ryan Nussbaum said...

Rachel,

I'd try combining the colored pencil with a wash. Start with the wash to get the basic light and shadow shapes and use the pencil for smooth gradation and detail work. If you draw lightly in little circles, and layer the colors over one another it won't have the colored pencil look--it's all in the controlled handling. (Julia's pictures are all built up in very light layers) You could try blending with a paper stump as well.

John Hendrix said...

Limited access?

Do you live in one of those authentic colonial tour villages? Ditch the pencils. Hit the art supply store.

Sam said...
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