Watercolor Pencils

About ten years ago I was really in to using colored pencils over an inked drawing. So instead of using shading or cross-hatch to devolp depth, I would use colored pencils. This necessitated me radically changing how I drew pictures since heavy graphite pencil would interfer with the color pencil. I abandoned this style, mostly because I wanted to do larger pictures and it took too long fill in that much space with colored pencil. I think that this style should go well with water color pencils. At least that is my hope.

Since the style is very minimalistic and I am using a thin pencil (0.3 mm), this scan is very light. But I think it should convey the basics of the pictures. Obviously, the next step is to color it.

At the Beach
9x12, pencil on paper 

Finall Color Blocking
16x20, charcoal on Canson Mi-Teintes board
The initial part of the painting, or under-painting, is complete. Normally I do not put this much detail in the under-painting, but I wanted to see how the mountain would look. This is probably going to be a mistake since I plan to radically change the color scheme and I run the risk of people liking the under-painting more, which is likely, since at this stage it is closer to a drawing (my strength) and less like a painting (my goal). Only time will tell. But I am really excited about what I plan to do with the colors. As always, there is a vast gap between what is in my head and what makes it to the page.
For the next step I will work the painting hard using my old trusty Rembrant pastels (which are a medium soft pastel). 

Bad Ass Fae

I really should do more of these, maybe do some of these on location. . .hmmm. . .

Bad Ass Fae
9x12, watercolor pencils with ink and pastel on paper
This is just me screwing around, plain and simple. I have been looking at the sketches over at sketchcrawl with envy over his skill in watercolor (not fair how cool those quick on locations sketches are!). I have always wanted to do stuff like that, but I really suck with watercolors (plus, they are so damn messy, at least in my hands). I had bought a set of watercolor pencils ages ago and decided to give them a try. Bolstered with ink pens and some pastels, I kinda like this effort. But at any rate, it sure was fun.

Initial Color Blocking
16x20, charcoal on Canson Mi-Teintes board 

It all starts with a sketch. . .

Okay, Pman, you asked for it, you got it. More step by step postings. Part of my reasoning for doing this is to keep me motivated and keep me painting. I figure if I post the painting in stages and people keep asking me when I will finish, then I will try to be motivated to paint more often. At least that is the theory. Enjoy.

Most of my pastel paintings start with a charcoal under-drawing. Sometimes I will block in areas of dark, and sometimes (as is the case with this picture) I do not. The main area of focus of this painting will be the central mountain and it will contain the only significant dark area. The next step will be to begin to block in colors with a hard pastel (NuPastel). Hopefully sooner than later.

Preliminary Sketch
16x20, charcoal on Canson Mi-Teintes board 

FINISHED!!!!!

This one painting, not the blog.

Summer by the Tree
12x16, pastel on Canson Mi-Teintes
I am sure most people will not see any difference between this version and the other version of this painting that I posted last week. But to me, there is a world of difference. Trust me, there is. I am glad that I made the changes but even happier that I did not ruin the painting in the process. This piece is, for all intents and purposes, finished. Not much more I want to say about it, so I guess that means I am done. 

Kirby’s Thor
14x17, pastel with colored pencil and inks on bristol
Jack Kirby was a Genius. Even a watered down copy of his work looks cool. I was feeling down and out one day, wanted to draw something, but just did not know what to do. I picked up my beaten-up copy of an old Marvel Treasure Edition and decided to do the splash page from Thor #157 (from waaaay back in the day, the cover price was 12 cents). I always thought the Mangog was a cool-ass villain (obviously, the villain in this pic), seems that I am in the minority in this view. Oh well.
The figures are done in pen and ink with colored pencil. The background was quickly done in pastel. This picture was completed in about two hours and completely got me out of whatever malaise that I was in, but that was the point of this exercise.
 

Falconess
14x17, pastel with colored pencil and inks on bristol
I saw this as a sketch somewhere (can not remember where or by who), but I simply had to recreate it. It was done at a time when I was fascinated with using simple geometric shapes to help frame, but not limit the picture. 

Ronin
14x17, pastel with colored pencil and inks on bristol
When I went to Japan for the first time and wanted to bring back gifts, I bought a bunch of tee shirts. These were two of the most common images that I found, Fujisan and a samurai. I called this piece Ronin as a play on words. Ronin, aside from being a masterless samurai, means “wave-person” since they were considered to be, literally, free as a wave. I thought myself quite clever by combing these two images. 

HaloScan

I am hoping that by installing the HaloScan comment system that I have seen on other blogs should make adding comments easier. But as usual, I am confused as to whether it is working properly. Crap!! :(

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Summer by the Tree

It was not this summer and it was not this tree, but there was a summer and there was a tree...

I definitely liked the idea of posting pictures before they are completely finished, especially when many of my paintings need to "age" for a while before I feel they are completed. In this case, I am not sure if this is the finished product or if I will do some radical re-working in certain areas. I am leaning toward the latter and will probably spray it with workable fix and procede from there. In the interim, I have started another painting and will post pictures of it as it progresses.

Summer by the Tree
12x16, pastel on Canson Mi-Teintes