"HOLY HORSE!!! I FINALLY GOT IT!"

After many unsuccessfull attempts at rendering a decent enough horse with colored pencils, I finally got it! The support was the decisive factor, since blending to make the muscles and the shine well defined was definitely my biggest challenge.

I tried and tried getting my horse done on various surfaces such as Stonehenge, Bristol Vellum, Bristol Smooth, ArtAgain, Canson Mi-Teintes, Fabriano and Arches Hot Press Watercolor Papers, Grafix Duralar, Illustration Board, UArt Pastel Paper, Art Spectrum Colourfix, you name it! When I finally decided to do it on Crescent Suede Matboard it worked like a charm! What an incredible surface. At first I found it really weird, it kinda grabbed the pencil in a strange way and it took me awhile to learn just how much pressure to use and what kind of pencil point and stroke I needed. However, the best part came when I used fritch scrubbers to blend the colors, it worked wonders to make really smooth and seamless blends. The final result looks more like a pastel painting than a colored pencil one. I love the delicate and dreamy look of it.

If you want to try suede matboard but don't want to spend a lot on a full sheet since it costs about $40.00 for a 32"X40" board plus oversized item shipping fees, and on top of that you'll need a mat cutter to cut it in smaller pieces or pay your local framer to do it for you. Either way it's gonna cost even more. You can buy a sampler with ten different colors, cut to ACEO size from "Stuff for ATCs" at :

http://www.stuff4atc.com/product/27576/Suedeboard-Assorted-Colors-25-x-35_267754.html

They also have a variety of other surfaces for really affordable prices and the shipping is inexpensive and super fast.

Anyways, without further ado, here's my little guy, his name is Tufty and he used to belong to my best friend when she was a teenager. I use the tan colored suede board I got from Stuff for ATCs and Faber-Castell Polychromos as well as Prismacolor colored pencils. I'm re-doing Tufty from another picture, very similar to the one I used for the ACEO. I'll be using a tan colored Hannemuhle Velour Paper, a present from my dear friend Rose (thank you soooo much, my sweet friend) which is a surface very similar to the suede board I used before. This time I'm definitely going bigger, this painting will be 8"X10". It feels so weird to paint so large after so many months of painting only ACEO sized pieces. I'll be taking pictures of the process and I'm planning on posting it as a wip so everyone can see the progression of colored pencils on Velour Paper.

Have a super colorful and imaginative week.

Many hugs,

Jade