Figured I should give the Panpastel drawing set a go, this was done with the set of 10. I've never used these pastels or this style before, and I had no idea how the colors were supposed to be used together, of rolled with it and was amazed by the way they started magically coming together as I added the different colors in. I had no idea what the blue pastel was for so I just kind of started throwing it in wherever it felt right and I'm pretty pleased with the end result. It looks sort of like an oil painting, and honestly they handle and mix very similarly to oil paint except they're already dry and smooth.

Apparently the technique is called "colorism" when you use cool colors in the shadow areas and warm colors for the light areas. Too bad somebody else invented it first, because I'm digging this technique after having done so many tonal black & white works, it's really different and fun and refreshing.

9.5x13" on orangeish Fabriano Tiziano paper. About 2 hours.

Watercolor Demo

I wanted to make a blue painting so I figured why not record it as a live demo as well?

YouTube link.


8x10" on an Arches HP watercolor board. About 1.5 hours.

Acquisitions!

I only had one textbook to buy this semester, so I invested some of my money in things I'd been wanting to try for a while.

The brown box is a Mt. Vision flesh tones set of 25 pastels. They're the biggest pastels I've ever seen, I didn't expect to get this amount for the price, so I'm really pleased with them even though I haven't even tried them yet.
I got the Panpastel sets mostly for painting cats and to try my hand at landscapes, and the Pastelmat seems to be highly praised everywhere, so I'm excited to experience it.

I bought the Da Vinci Venetian red tube a while back but never really used it because the tinting power was too strong to lighten with the big tube of student grade white I had. I used this as an excuse to branch out and get a selection of Gamblin paints as well as a big white tube and try out artist grade oils. I  used to enjoy oil painting when I was first learning art, but I haven't tried it in several years. The Gamblin paints came with a set of 4 small paints as a bonus, so it'll be interesting to try out some extra colors. I didn't actually realize it until I set them out and looked at them, but I believe I have a pretty nice palette selection here.

I intend to write a few reviews for these products after I've played with them. I've invested enough cash into them that I have no excuse not to use them (I have a tendency to buy stuff and tuck it away for months) and hopefully they'll pay for themselves in short order.

Me as Everything (pt.1)

Spiral



Lion


The Machine Spirit

A while back, I figured I'd try something different from regular self-portraits and start incorporating other elements into them. So the result is these weird amalgamations of me and various other things. They're kind of creepy.

The Machine Spirit & Lion are both 9x12" ink and watercolor paintings on Arches cold-pressed watercolor paper. The nautilus one is an 8x10" on an Arches hot-pressed board. Can't remember what all colors I used, usually it's a mix of Maimeri and Winsor & Newton. Mostly burnt sienna, cobalt blue, sepia, and thio violet.

I can't say enough good things about the Arches boards, they're the same great paper but mounted on an archival board that doesn't warp when wet, so it's more convenient than plain paper albeit more expensive per sheet.

Another one for 2012

This one was a request from a buddy's sister. The actual color of the drawing is more like the sepia one but I put it in grayscale when I scanned it also, since it looks nice that way too.

8x10", strathmore 400 drawing paper. Same HB and 3B pencil as well as a B pencil for VARIETY.

Hey, I finally figured out how to draw blonde people! Now there's a milestone.

2012 productivity!

Super detailed realism takes too long. I wanted to finish out the family series of some of my relatives, so I adopted an old-school style of pencil drawing akin to what you'd see artists in the 40s and 50s and I'm pretty happy with it. I still gravitate more towards the detailed rather than the sketchy style, I guess it's just personal habit.

Here's a couple. They only took 2-3 hours apiece and are 8x10" on Strathmore 400 drawing paper. Done almost entirely with an HB leadholder pencil and a 3B regular pencil for the dark parts.

These two kids are siblings. There is one more in the family I need to draw, then the set will be finished.