Tuesday, April 28, 2009

"THE AMAZING SINGING PASTEL PENCILS"

Hello me luvs, been busy today but had enough time to finish the pastel pencils part of the tiger. Already sprayed him with three coats of workable fixative and tomorrow I'll start the final detailed work in Prismacolor colored pencils, using my Icarus Board.

I found that laying the base colors with pastel pencils considerably speeds up the process. Had I done these initial layers in colored pencils, it would've taken me twice or maybe even three times longer than it did with the pastel pencils.

This was a joy to work on, even though I had zero experience with pastel pencils. Once you get the hang of it, it's really nice working with this medium. I could never get along with the pencils before, only the soft pastel sticks. But I figured that the problem was that I was trying to handle both mediums the same way and they each have their own particular ways. Once I understood that, the pencils just started to sing in my hands. The big pita is the fact that the only way you can sharpen the pencils without breaking the points is with a craft knife or Stanley blade. After awhile the thumb that slices the wood kinda starts to hurt . Oh, well, c'est la vie. At least pastel pencils don't have to be razor sharp like colored pencils, all the time. Only for the details and I didn't do much detailing since this is coming next with the Prismas.

The palette here was very limited. I only used six Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel Pencils: White, Black, Terracotta, Dark Naples Ochre, Warm Grey and Van Dyke Brown. For the background I used Nupastels - White, Naples Yellow and Sienna Brown, all smudged with me very own wee little finger.

Tomorrow will be lotsa fun to finish this regal being. Can't wait to see what marvels I can accomplish with my Icarus Board in finishing this prince of felines with my Prismas.



Many hugs,
Jade

1 comments:

Holly Durr Art said...

I airbrushed a picture of a tiger a long time ago. I gave it to my neighbor and he got evicted and I think it's probably in the dump.

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