Sunday, October 15, 2006

Walk One Hundred and Seventy-Three – Season of mists

graphitintroad
All day it’s been warm and slightly misty, so I wanted to convey the soft appearance of the landscape with the low afternoon light. I had a look at Roz Stendhal’s excellent web site to see if I could get some tips about the dreaded Graphitint pencils, which she uses to great effect. One thing she suggests is to create a colour chart of the pencils both wet and dry so that you know how the colours will look if wetted. So do you think I did that? Did I hell. I’m all about getting on with it rather than sensible preparation. I don’t even know which colours I have in my water colour palette so whenever any of the pans need replacing I have to make a guess at whatever colour it was. Anyways the big change I made compared to the last couple of goes I’ve had with Graphitints, was to use very expensive hot pressed Arches paper which I think helps. I still don’t get water-soluble pencils, but I was happier with this than my previous attempts with this medium. The sky had to be added with normal watercolour paint as there doesn’t seem to be a suitable colour to use in the pencils.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

as silly as this is, this is how i've resorted to using them: I "scribble" a small, dense patch of dry color on a spare sheet of paper, then dipped a wet watercolor brush into the patch of dry color as if it was a pan...cuz i could never get the hang of drawing with them on wet paper or whatever, either!

2:03 am  
Blogger Julie Oakley said...

Zephyr, MY GOODNESS, I think I'd just take my paints out - they take up less space!

9:02 am  
Blogger Alison said...

I love these colours - this reminds me of a coast road - that sort of sea haze maybe. I find watercolour pencils useful in museums, with a waterbrush - the guards don't realize the rules are being broken. I never do all the trials and tests either - I'm just not that sort of person - 'start and make it work good enough' is me.

1:41 pm  

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