Evening Beach, watercolour pencil, 2.5x3.5 ins ACEO. Vivien BlackburnI've never done ACEO's before but decided to have a go. It's not a format or size I would normally use but I actually really enjoyed doing them.If you are interested in buying any of my ACEOs take a look at my Etsy site as I'll be uploading them there later today and tomorrow. I've only just begun and I'll keep adding new ACEOs
Remember that one geeky kid in Elementary School who would sit in the back of the class and carve pencils? He carved them in all sorts of configurations, designs and extraordinary shapes.Starting from a lowly, generic green pencil like this... he would end up with these... Actually I never knew such a kid and besides who would ever get it into their head to carve a pencil?These
Mawgan Porth, Sunny, Wild Day. Watercolour, watercolour pencils and coloured pencils. approx 9 ins square. Vivien BlackburnI decided to have a play with paint and pencils this morning before I have to get ready for the next hospital visit. This is done in watercolour with touches of watercolour pencil and glazes of polychromos coloured pencil to enhance colours, like the pink glow of the wet sand.
I got an e-mail this week from a student, asking what pens I use/recommend…. not the most simple answer in the world actually.
It depends entirely on what I’m drawing, and the style I’m looking for. So my collection of drawing equipment is huge, and growing all the time. As I find something new that I [...]
As previously reported by The Deadpool Bugle, former Deadpool artist Ed McGuinness will be doing a variant cover for Deadpool #2, which comes out September 17, 2008. McGuinness has posted the pencils for his variant cover on his deviantART page. The cover will be inked by Mark Farmer. [SOURCE]
A pencil will write in zero gravity, upside down, and under water!More than 14 billion pencils are produced in the world every year - enough to circle the globe 62 times.One pencil will draw a line 70 miles long. Pencils don't really contain lead.That gray matter is graphite and clay. Two billion pencils are made in the United States each year. The pencil was invented more than 400 years ago, in
Not all professional watercolour Hot Press papers behave in the same way.
I've been using what I think is Saunders Waterford Hot Press for coloured pencil drawings in my Drawing a Head class at the Princes Drawing School this term. It's a completely different experience from drawing on any other sort of paper and I thought I'd provide some feedback about what it's like.
Drawing a Head 5th
May in England, yellow fields and cow parsley. Sketch. 18x26cm approx Watercolour/mixed media. Vivien BlackburnA watercolour and mixed media sketch of the rapeseed just before it loses it's bright yellow flowers, with the cow parsley billowing in the verges, done from near where the pastel sketch was done.Watercolour, a little work with coloured pencils, white gouache and tippex went into this -an
Yep, that’s what I’m getting stuck into today.
Our linen cupboard is like some sort of monster that attacks up with it’s insides every time we open up it’s doors! So culling is the order of the day - old linen, and whatever else is hiding in the dark corners of the linen cupboard monster!
While I [...]
To our friends at Treehugger, please look away as we report that the Census Bureau is ditching plans to go digital and will return to its sinful pencil-pushing, paper-crazy roots. Originally, the Bureau planned for workers to use 500,000 wireless handheld devices from Harris Corp. as a replacement for the paperwork used to collect information from Americans who do not respond to the census. The $1.3 billion program looked great on, well, paper, but was ultimately derailed by hardware issues and incompetence.The biggest issue with the Harris handhelds was that they were more paperweight than PDA. They were too big (slightly larger than a cell phone), didn't transmit data very well, and at one point during testing there were 417 outstanding technical requirements not being met. "Reverting b
An old tree stump, A4 size sketch in coloured pencil. Vivien BlackburnAnother sketch done in between teaching - students are finishing off work and there are lulls where they need to feedback so I fetched this tree stump out of the art cupboard - it's about 12 inches high with multiple cut off branches and knobbly bits and a straight side where the saw cut through the major stem. Stem? trunk?? whatever!I actually got the PIF's posted yesterday Karen, Lyndsay and Jeanette - I either got asked to work extra and couldn't get to the post office before closing time - or when I could I forgot! the attention span of a gnat I'm afraid :>( sorry it's been so long.The book can't progress yet due to work and a trip to London to some good exhibitions this coming weekend. I'll report back o
So we asked our readers in our sidebar poll, "What would you like featured most on this blog?"; and many of you have responded modern design. In light of this fact, here is something we found today in our exploration around the net. Please continue voting in our poll and while you are at it please take a moment and vote for us in the sidebar poll at PartIV if you like our efforts. Thank you for your participation.From the Boex website here is their explanation of the bench shown above:Pencil BenchCreative Solutions designed this award winning, quirky bench from a single conversation to see if they could incorporate an everyday office object into a piece of furniture.The seat is made up of 1600 pencils which are individually sprung. Each pencil can be removed and used.Boex / 3D Creative Solutions Link
Let’s hope today’s talks really do end in a deal being struck so this strike can end. The last Speechless video is up and well worth watching so I’m embedding it below. Check it out:
For more on these videos, visit speechlesswithoutwriters.com.
Also, don’t forget about the Pencils2MediaMoguls campaign. They’re at 300,000 pencils right now but their [...]
Colour Comparison Charts - by Bob Ebdon
The Yellow Oranges Colour group
Today is a very grey day - and it's raining - so my thoughts naturally turn to colour. I think I do some of my most colourful work in the grey days of winter!
Recently, at the "Art Materials Live" exhibition at the NEC, I came across some new information on the UKCPS stand about colour in coloured pencils produced by Bob
I now know why I do not use wooden pencils.
I would snap them all in half in one day. I know what Mike B. was talking about in Sociology class the other day. One of the hot IT guys walked by me the other day and I realized I was bending the plastic pencil in my hand. Then there are just some seriously hot guys that walk around campus with no shirts on. Or some who dress up really nicely for some school events. Now all I hear in my head is “snap.” That would be another pencil lost to many.
I was asked if I take my own advice about picking up guys that I put in my blog. I found the question funny. At the time when I was writing that stuff, I was in a relationship. Maybe I should go back a few blog entires and check out my words of wisdom?
How long does it take for a milk carton to decompose in a landfill? How about a plastic soda bottle? Can anyone guess how long it takes for styrofoam to waste away into Earth? Great article from Great Green Shoes sparked this post, and subsequent contest. Big Clue Just Revealed!
I’m gonna be posting the results in an entry next week. But i wanna see what responses i get. Hit the comments section for your guesses. Maybe we should do a contest. How about a random draw? The winner receives a 12 pk of FSC Certified Cedar Pencils. These are really cool eco friendly pencils. See pics below. I can mail these off to ONE LUCKY WINNER. Sorry, but U.S. residents only.
Get your guesses in and good luck!
Contest Ends: Monday, the Oct 22nd, at Midnite.
Arts and Entertainment, Blog Action Day, Blog Contests, cedar pencils, comments section, conservation, contests, earth, eco friendly, fsc, fsc certified wood, green shoes, guess, landfill, landfills, lucky winner, mail, milk carton, pk, plasti
+ D&AD has announced "Call for Entries" for 2008 D&AD Global Awards, in 30 different categories encompassing all aspects of creative communications from writing and art direction to architecture, Graphic design and photography. The D&AD Awards, which is also popularly known as the "Yellow Pencils", are one of the most internationally prestigious creative awards for the design and advertising industry. D&AD awards has been rewarding creative excellence since 1962.The D&AD Global Awards offer the creative community the opportunity to be judged by its harshest critics - its peers. Over 270 eminent creative practitioners selected for their expertise in their field, looking for great ideas that are well executed and appropriate to their mediums. So, now its your chance to hold well respected and popular "Yellow Pencil," and do remember to submit your entry before 14 November 2007, to avail a discount of 10% on entry fee. The regular online Entry Deadline is Wednesday 16
PencilThings.com is going to offer Tombow pencil varities not otherwise available in the United States, or anywhere outside of Japan. for that matter. They are: Mono 100; Mono R; Mono J; and 8900 HOP. In addition, we will offer Tombow colored pencil sets and erasers. We are beginning with the Mono 100, Mono R and Mono J, each in HB lead degree.
Tombow MONO 100. This pencil is designed for the widest range of professional writing, drafting and drawing uses. It is Tombow's flagship model. Tombow says that this pencil shares the same lead as the Tombow MONO, which is currently available in the United States. The body of the MONO 100 looks quite different from the current MONO pencil. You can see a picture of it at and read comments at the "paper and pencil" BLOG.
The MONO 100 is manufactured in 14 degrees: 6B 5B 4B 3B 2B B HB F H 2H 3H 4H 5H 6H. The pencils are boxed one dozen per degree, and the pencils and box are printed and packaged for sale in Japan. Our initial supply w
The Order Beds
10" x 14" on Arches Hot Press
copyright Katherine Tyrrell
This is a sketch which I started a couple of weeks ago at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew - or Kew Gardens as they popularly known and finished the next day. It's a view of the Order Beds (in the north eastern section of the garden or no 28 on the map) from the centre of that bit of the garden - looking towards the Temple
Pencils do not have to be made from wood; they can also be made from old newspapers. This is a pretty good idea because as you can imagine to just to make pencils whole trees are being cut down. At least this way the paper has already been used, and in fact when the pencils are sharpened the newsprint can be seen, which is a nice touch.
These “Smencils” are also scented and come in bubble gum, cherry, cinnamon, grape, pineapple, fruit punch, peppermint, water melon, root beer and orange flavors, the scents are guaranteed to last for up to two years.
Prices are $5 for a five pack or $10 for a ten pack.
Source [Great Green Goods]
Arts and Entertainment, Children and Toys, Eco Friendly, old newspapers, orange flavors, pencils, pineapple fruit, water melon
This week one of my gifted students, Jenny, brought in a superb book by Shirley Trevena (you can see some of the work in it on her website) - an artist I really admire. One of the techniques she uses is rubbing watercolour pencils with sandpaper, over damp watercolour washes, giving a speckled effect - and it looks wonderful. http://www.shirleytrevena.com/ take a look at her gorgeous work :)Jenny lent me her pencils to have a go - so this is a very quick demo for the class - a play on cartridge paper with watercolour, watercolour pencils and sandpaper :) and ordinary coloured pencils (my own). We went on to discuss drawing with the 'wrong' end of the brush through damp paint to get those veins in the leaves and putting soft patches of normal coloured pencils in areas to enhance and push colours. They've all been used in this demo piece.I'm sold! I have to get some water soluble coloured pencils :) I think graphitints would be good for this as they are supposed to dry waterproof - w
This is a page of watercolour studies of pansies, not intended to be 'a painting', I did a while ago that I came across. It's a grey rainy day and the light isn't good to get on with the canvasses so I decided to try to pull it together as a composition. I used a bit more watercolour and coloured pencils and cropped it and added the soft blue green background to cool it down a little - the colours felt too hot. The deep dark pansies were really velvety and intense and maybe not the colour scheme I would have set out to use with the orange and pale yellows - but the background helps to knit them together. Bringing the soft mauves into the darker flowers also helped.I also took another look at a mixed media woodland that was unfinished and worked a little more on that.It has a little oil pastel in the early stages, watercolour and then coloured pencils.
If you have fond memories about a pencil you once used, I encourage you to find it again. For, every time you see it, and handle it, and write something down, those memories will well up and you'll have some...
Drawing a Head 24th May 2007 - Clelia
coloured pencils on Winsor and Newton Lana Tints Grained Surface Pastel Paper 160gsm
copyright Katherine Tyrrell
Two versions of the model I drew yesterday in my Drawing a Head class. The first was done in my usual coloured pencils the first two sessions (approximately 75 minutes) and the second was done using Derwent Drawing Pencils at the end of the
At the end of March Derwent announced a new product - Derwent Tinted Charcoal. These are wood encased pencils (no mess!) which contain a mix of charcoal and small amounts of pigment and clay. It appears to be a charcoal version of the Graphitint pencil.Charcoal is a classic drawing medium and is capable of being used to produce the most sensitive drawings due to the scope it offers to vary the line and weight of the mark being made. It can also be used to cover large areas quickly - although personally I think the best way of doing this is with charcoal which is not encased.Technical detailsDerwent Tinted Charcoal is produced in 21 fabulous tints to complement the three traditional charcoal shades of light, medium and dark. It is available individually, in assorted tins of 12 and 24 and in trial packs of six. (Derwent News)As with normal charcoal, Derwent assures that unwanted colour can be lifted out quickly with a kneadable putty eraser or plastic eraser. It also indicates that t
Two things that coloured pencil artists concern themselves with - when not drawing - is acquisition ('Do I have enough pencils?') and disposition ('What do I do with all those short stubby ones?')AcquisitionThe answer to the first question is an unequivocal "No". You can never have 'enough' pencils - unless you truly believe that you can produce everything you have ever wanted to draw with one red, one blue and one yellow pencil! Even when you settle on your brand of preference you can still get the heebies jeebies when you think you might not have enough stock of unused pencils in your favourite colours. Do I have tins containing stocks of unused pencils? Of course I have - with an elastic band round them to stop them from rolling around and getting damaged if the tin is handled! (Actually I have more than one tin....) I won't even refer to what happens when a favourite brand or colour is discontinued - it's too painful!In my experience, the dedicated coloured pencil ar
I’ve noticed that it’s hard to draw effectively when you are in pain. I hurt my back today. My dad hauls scrap metal and called me this morning to help him out on a job. I hurt myself lifting some 400 lb obsolete farm implements onto his truck.
But it’s a poor excuse in the lack of actual artwork or writing that has been done lately. I’ve gotten busy and slightly burnt out over the last few weeks. It may have been Easter followed quickly by trying to get out of town for a few days to visit family and friends (and a pretty cool castle).
For some reason, I have the ongoing problem of sketch books turning into note journals, filled more with writing and half finished sketches so I have turned to only using index cards in place of sketch books. I’ve long been a fan of blank index cards. They are cheap, sturdy tag board, that loves to soak up ink and pencil and are easy to carry around.
This allows me to continue my art on a small scale when other lif
Seattle author chronicles the 'madcap' evolution of the skirtBy Kathy SchultzNWsource shopping columnist HARPERCOLLINS Can there really be an entire book on the skirt? The answer is yes – and it's a fun read to boot. "The Long (and Short) of It: The..
I should be doing lots of things instead but I wanted to draw - so I did :) ... and now I have to face the dirty dishes, pile of washing and tidying up :( I did this from a combination of the sketches I did on the beach at sunset and memory. I've done a series of works from those sketches - in oil, pastel and digital images. It was interesting to see just how intense and dark it's possible to go with coloured pencils. I think they hold up well in comparison with other media. I'm speeding up with them and can now imagine sketching more with them plein air. I think they'll feature more often in my sketchbooks in the future. It was done with a mix of Polychromos, Lyra and cheapo Tescos coloured pencils and one Derwent. I like the heavier waxier Polychromos and Lyra - in future I'll know which to go for. Luckily I took the advice of expert CP users and bought quite a few polychromos - the Derwent is an old one, though it's good I don't like it as much. The moleskine
This is my 'back of the sketchbook' colour chart for my very first set of coloured pencils - a 36 pencil set of Lyra Rembrandt PolycolourVivien has been so taken with her new set of Lyra Rembrandt flesh colours that I thought I'd show her (and the rest of you) a taster of what she's missing in terms of the rest of the range!I've tried a lot of different brands of coloured pencils - but keep coming back to my Lyra Rembrandt pencils. They have some great shades which achieve saturated colour very easily, never ever break and don't get temperamental. They seem happy to work with any other brand and particularly like Faber Castell Polychromos. For a proper review see below.I've done the colour chart image large so if anybody wants to try and decipher my scribble and check the names they should be able to - just click on the image and you'll get the large version.This is what I said about Lyra Rembrandt Coloured Pencils in my review in the Wet Canvas Product ReviewMy very first c
On my website www.pastelsandpencils.com I have a page called "Art Materials and Other Resources" which identifies all the art materials and art suppliers I use - pastels, coloured pencils, pen and ink, paper, sketchbooks - and the rest! I started to develop this page last year. Gradually I've added in all the different items - and associated images - and it's now one of the most popular pages on the site. I guess we're always interested, whether clients or fellow artists, in what materials people use for their work!I realised just recently I'd never formally 'signposted' about its existence from this blog so this post is to remedy that omission. I've always been very grateful to the people who had websites which shared information as I developed my artwork and tried different things - and it's a pleasure to share the information I have - even if it did take a bit of time to sort it all out!While some products I use will continue to find favour over time (e.g. I've been us
I should be getting on with all sorts of other stuff but couldn't resist playing a bit more with the moleskine and lyra pencils.This is from a photograph taken when this little monster was really tiny,The colours of the skin tone set are perfect for her fur.The moleskine is really nice to use with coloured pencils, I like the smooth surface and the ease of rubbing out to draw back into colours.I don't use coloured pencils in the way that many people do, I'm not interested in creating a painterly smooth finish with no paper showing - I like to use them freely, in a scribbly way, more as a drawing medium, using the paper as another element.Incidentally, she may look sweet but she was busy chewing my husband's fingers with very sharp little fangs!
This is the second of two posts providing an overview of abrasive supports for use with pastels. Yesterday's post discussed a range of supports - Ampersand Pastelbord, Art Spectrum Colourfix and Ersta Sanded Paper.Today's post covers four different surface:Jack Richeson Premium Pastel Surface (new product)Sennelier La Carte Pastel (Pastel Card) / Rembrandt Pastel Board.Schminke Sansfix PastellkartonWallis PaperFuture posts will cover making your own abrasive supports using pumice or marble dust and this will be covered in a future blog post and the velour type papers.Quotes (in the boxes) which follow are all from the Dakota Pastels website unless otherwise indicated. I was generally impressed with the presentation of information on this website - which specialises in pastels and associated art materials.Jack Richeson Premier Pastel SurfaceJack Richeson is introducing a new pastel surface produced on three different substrates:140lb. paper, 1/8” hardboard and 3/16” Gator Boar
Christmas in Cheshire available via the Art for UK Youth North 2007 exhibition in April)5" x 15", coloured pencils on Art Spectrum Colourfixcopyright Katherine TyrrellI really like making a mark on an abrasive support when developing artwork involving either pastels or coloured pencils. So how come I've not done an overview about abrasive supports before? This post begins to remedy that problem and completes with a second post tomorrow.Why use abrasive supports for pastels and coloured pencils? I use an abrasive support for pastels because I find it invariably gives me much greater control over my soft pastel sticks. Adhesion is also very much better than when pastel is used on paper. Abrasive supports vary as to how much pigment can be laid down before the tooth is 'full' - some have such a good grip they positively eat soft pastel sticks.The way I use my coloured pencils on abrasive supports is very similar to the way I use pastels. The only real difference seems to be
This is a pencil sketch I colour adjusted after photographing. I did it kind of quickly as I aim to get back to painting a bit longer piece where I'm just doing detail by detail and it's not enough to show yet, so hope to get that done by the end of the month. I did a horizontal flip of the pencil sketch and it's really wonky, so I guess I missed the mark. You get used to how a drawing looks, even it it's off.
Watercolor pencils are not a medium that has caught on too much among serious artists. Perhaps that his because most of the pencils out there are not artist quality. The pigments are not clearly indicated and their lightfastness is questionable at the very least.Derwent has a line of pencils that are lightfast and artist quality. They are called Signature. They come in Watercolor and regular pencils. I used those to make this little painting of oranges in a plate.If you enjoy quality pencils or are an artist wanting to try out good quality watercolor pencils, I urge you to hurry and get some of these Signature pencils. Why hurry? No I am not doing a hard sell for Derwent. The fact is if you live in North America, you will notice that every art store has them on clearance or sale. Why? Because the distributor in North America has decided to discontinue providing them to us.So get them while you can. I will be writing a full feature about the Derwent watercolor pencil line soon with a f
