Here she goes again, messing about with colored pencils. Here's phase one of the Great Green Garden Glove Experiment: three kinds of water soluble colored pencils used to draw the glove, one regular colored pencil used, too. Not only do the pencils behave differently, but so do I while using them. With the Cretacolors (upper right), I tend to use more sweeping, fluid lines. With the Faber-Castell colored pencils (lower right), I use more staccato , and shorter, strokes. The Cretacolors feel more like graphite pencils; the Faber Castell feel more like pastels, so maybe that accounts for it. The Derwent Inktense pencils (upper left) have an almost litho pencil feel to them, so I work quickly and loosely. The limited color palette contributes to that approach.
The Faber Castell Polychromos, the dry ones, make me a bit finicky, I think. I need to fight that.
Here's Phase Two. Wow, what a difference a wet brush makes on some of these!
See how much more pigment the Faber-Castells have! The colors change radically and you have much less control over nuances. Of course, you'd learn to modulate that in time.
You'd expect the Inktense wet colors to be heavily saturated, and they are. Again, less control here, but more like real watercolor.
Conclusion: I would use all of these, at various times, for various purposes. I still like the Cretacolors for drawing the best. I will continue with the F-C dry pencils to struggle against overdelicacy. The F-C watercolor pencils and the Inktense I'd use most in the field sketching--- to accent areas of traditional watercolor sketches.
Hi Laura--
This is such a useful post... Just came back to it while ordering pencils for my daughter.
Posted by: marlyat2 | June 12, 2008 at 11:01 PM
Wow - love this study. Surely I don't need MORE pencils, do I? But I don't have any of these water-types! And now you've gone and whetted my insatiable appetite for art supplies...
Wonderful work, wonderful blog!
Posted by: Starr | June 20, 2006 at 10:30 AM
I cannot believe your patience, drawing the same subject four times (and very beautifully at that).
Posted by: Julie Oakley | June 15, 2006 at 05:58 PM
I'm thrilled that you all got something from my green glove goings-on! Will do something similar soon and look forward to seeing others, like Catalina's, too!
Posted by: Laura | June 15, 2006 at 02:22 PM
Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery useful! thank you. Good idea as well, to compare in this way, i will do it with some other medium
Posted by: Catalina | June 15, 2006 at 09:45 AM
what a fascinating study!
Posted by: zephyr | June 15, 2006 at 08:21 AM