Sunday, July 25, 2010

Can colored pencils really look this good?

After having done all three coloring techniques I went back and revisted the color pencil and Gamsol technique to see if I could get something closer to the Copic image that had color everywhere instead just a fade to white coloring pattern. I had high hopes for it as cheap way to nicely color stuff for some other ideas I want to explore later.

I changed two things though this time. First, I used different colored pencils. I used Crayola Twistables I brought as a travel pencils a long time ago. These are basically durable plastic mechanical colored pencils for kids don't need a sharpener. The lead in them is softer or different somehow from the other ones I used because I get less pencil marks when coloring with them. The second thing I did was I remembered seeing something on the web in an art homework assignment that students where supposed to do blending without mineral spirits. So, armed with those thoughts, this was my attempt at getting a full color pencil/Gamsol image:




I used the 2 browns, red and a gray out of the Crayola set. There are only 24 colors so picking colors was easy. In order to get different shades of the same color, I put different amounts of pencil down. I only used the dark brown near the edges. I used a dry blending stump to blend and remove the pencil lines as much as possible. Dry blending alone will not get the look you see. Once I was done dry blending, I went back with a little bit of Gamsol on the blending stump and dissolved the dark brown line into the light brown, finished off the removal any more stubborn pencil lines and picked up a little bit of red from the tongue to use on the cat as pink.

I will say, like I said before, blending it takes a bit of work and finger pressure and learning so the technique may not be for everyone. The best way to explain this is I could sit there and color 30 images with Copic markers and not feel anything. This technique requires you to apply at least light pressure on the stump so I wouldn't do a lot of them at once.

I think the end result was worth it though.

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