Pastel Swatches

Took the time today to prepare swatches of pastel like I did of my watercolors. This doesn't serve as much of a purpose since opaque pastel lays down pretty much exactly as it looks from the stick, but they're pretty, at least.

I did my best to color-correct for how they appear in the real world. They're not quite as finicky as watercolor in that department.

Set 1:

The first set we have here are from Sennelier's 80 half-stick assortment. These are very good pastels for the money, IMO. I've read some complaints that a few colors are really hard, but from what I can tell, only a few colors seem noticeably harder than the others. Generally, these are soft, rich colored pastels and I've thoroughly enjoyed using them. (Not these of course. I haven't painted a single thing with these and I've had them for 5 months now. :D )

Set 2:

These are assorted pastels and pencils I've accumulated since the Fall of 2009.  I'll note a few interesting things here.

The Yarka Russian Sauce crayons are very nice. The colors are all muted and subdued and the sticks feel quite similar to a Conte crayon. I haven't got the chance to try them out yet.

The rest are typical pastels I've collected based on my primary style of portraitrature, you'll notice a lot of earth colors. These also tend to be REALLY TOXIC in some brands, so watch yourself.

Of the brands, I believe Great American Artworks are my favorite. They have great names too. I just love that Atmosphere color.

Painting 1

Oh boy, I always said it was a-comin': the day when I made the first "Painting" post. Yay!

As I may have mentioned before, I don't paint a whole lot but enjoy mixing mediums. This originally was intended as a quick and to-the-point monotone watercolor painting in sepia; however, I completed the painting and figured I'd add in a few details.

So I whipped out the pastel and charcoal pencils and went to town on the painting. I always liked to use charcoal over ink for the textural effects, and it worked similarly here. There's actually quite a variety of colors here: about 9, I believe. I left them kind of subtle to keep with the original plan but I think they definitely add something.

The painting is on Crescent 310 illustration board. It's an okay surface for this sort of thing: not as absorbent as good watercolor paper (the water WILL run) but tough and it holds its shape well even under my "soak it" approach. Crescent recommends it for pencils and not wet media but it is a multi-purpose board, so there you have it.

*UPDATE*

Added in a background with some sort of brown paint that was on my palette mixed into a bunch of Cadmium Red.

Sexy.

Watercolor Swatches

Tonight I took the time to make color swatches of the 19 watercolor paints I have.
Make sure to view the full size image.


I labeled the brand and color beneath each sample, although my handwriting never improved past about a 2nd grade level, so if you can't read any of them and want to know, just ask.








My oldest paints are the Winsor & Newton Cotman paints, a student line but they seem to be of fairly good quality and have some nice colors. I've done at least a dozen ink and wash paintings using only the W&N paints you see here: earth colors. They work well together and are great for sketching/painting landscapes and fall scenery.

The Van Gogh and Grumbacher paints are also student paints that I pick up sometimes at art stores when they're on sale. You can find them extremely cheap and they seem to be very good paints for the money. For around $2, I can't find anything to beat them for cost/quantity/quality in a student paint for sketching or adding color to ink drawings.

I really like the Maimeri Blu paints. Their Cobalt Blue is completely awesome even though it's really expensive, and their Cadmium colors are very vibrant, the only fault I have with them (Cadmium in general as a watercolor pigment) is that they are so opaque. That does have its uses, though.
The blue is a bit grainy but really potent, it mixes up some nice purples or greens with ease.
The earth colors are good. I strongly recommend you at least try their blues and siennas. From what I've red, they make some good violet colors as well.
Viridian is a nice sea-green color and I've found it useful for painting plants.

Drawings 4

I haven't updated this in a while.

Here is a carbon pencil drawing I did of my grandparents as a christmas gift for my grandma.


General's Carbon Sketch pencil is probably my favorite pencil I've tried. It's soft and easily blended with a tortillon, keeps enough of a point for details, and is really, really black. I still use charcoal pencils, but this has basically replaced them for general sketching or drawing. It also works well with pastel pencils as a black.

Drawings 3

Only one this time!
This blog is still young and more of a journal at this stage, though.

This one was done a while back, around September. It was originally intended to be a preliminary sketch for a pastel painting, but it turned out unusually well.

Graphite drawing on Strathmore 400 drawing paper.



She's probably been my favorite person to draw, ever. (Well, next to the various self portraits I do, heh.)
I've done a few of her but this is my favorite so far.

She also really loved this.
That's one of the things that makes art so worthwhile.

Drawings 2 (Demo)

More drawings!



These two were part of a demo I did:



There is the preliminary pencil drawing and the final color drawing.
Differences are visible between the two, I cannot recall which are corrections and which are just minor accidents. Generally, the color version is more technically correct.

As for the actual technique, I use conte crayons, pastel pencils, and soft pastels.
A simple conte sketching set has rapidly one of the most used tools in my arsenal. I begin with bistre for the darkest areas, blend it in with a cotton swab, and layer on the sanguine crayons and blend to shape the general form of the skin. I use three or four soft pastels to add in a little extra color to the skin afterwards.
Pastel pencils are used for the mouth, eyes, and details.

It's a very straightforward technique and I think it produces pretty good results.




This is another portrait produced using the same technique:





I don't really know either of these ladies very well but they were nice enough to allow me to use their photo for a reference and seemed very pleased with the results.





I have come to realize that I'm fairly good at what I do... it kind of surprises me just how happy a simple drawing can make someone.
The longer I do this, the more confident I become in my skills.



Hopefully I'll be doing this for a long time.

Drawings 1

There will be many of these posts... I'll keep them numbered as "Drawings 1, 2, 3, etc." so they're easy to find. As I gain more experience, you'll also see paintings and the like.

I found a paper I particularly like. It's Strathmore 400 drawing paper: not specifically archival, but good paper and I figure it'll last a long time anyway. It's so cheap, I can't really find anything else that really compares for the price. I use a better paper for more in depth works, but this one works great for general purpose drawing.



You'll either recognize this woman or you won't. This graphite drawing took about 3 hours and is one that a lot of my friends really like for some reason. I've done better ones, but they still like this one. The lady herself is very aesthetically pleasing, in my opinion.

One of the things I'm liking about blogger is that I can post higher resolution images. Art is best viewed large, preferably from life but this will work fine.







Here's one I did of a friend. He's a good guy and easy to draw because he his head is so ellipsoidal... heh.
This is an ink and brush drawing. This is actually probably my favorite technique I've ever tried. It allows me to work very fast and still maintain a high level of detail. I use a #4 white nylon brush and india ink thinned with water for this technique. My personal preference is Higgins Black Magic. It goes a long way: this is actually probably cheaper than drawing with a pencil because so little ink is needed.

Many of my methods are based on cutting costs and spending less while maintaining a consistent quality of workmanship and materials. I feel you shouldn't have to break the bank to create art.