Ulla's Adventures with Coloured Pencils

[ullahennig]

Some weeks ago I discovered the world of coloured pencils, and the goal of this thread is to document the various stages of experimenting. I am using a relatively small format (roughly the size of a postcard), and it is not really a sketchpad but single pages (I hope that doing it this way won't exclude me from this forum!).
The first one I did is this one:

I did it in order to try out shading and blending. I was surprised about the luminance of the colours, and I also was surprised about how much I liked that medium.

By the way, my first language is not English, and I hope that I don't torture that wonderful language too much!
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Ulla

[DrDebby]

Welcome to the Art Journal forum, Ulla. Your English is fine.

This is a very cool piece. What kind of paper is this? And, did you ink first or after the colored pencil?

[ullahennig]

Thanks for the welcome, DrDebby! I did the inking after the coloring. The paper is sketchbook paper.

[ullahennig]

And here's the next one, an abstract piece, this time on a somewhat rougher paper:

I am not quite satisfied with the colour in the circle in the middle. Also inked after applying the colours. I used Pitt artbrush pen for inking this time, but I think the ink is too thick.

[bookscorpion]

I actually like the thick lines. What's bugging you about the colour in the middle? Maybe we can help

Is it me or did this thread lose some posts?

[Fidgement]

Ulla, these are wonderful. Very bright and full of life. Well done.

Helen

[ullahennig]

Thanks for commenting, bookscorpion! I am not sure whether the colour in the right half of the circle in the middle fits to the other colours. I am just beginning with my travel into the worlds of colour because I haven#t done much with colours until just some weeks ago.

[RainySea]

Welcome. . . Ulla. . . beautiful color and design in the leaves against the hills!

[Joan T]

You have a nice variety of colors in both of these. WELCOME!

[DrDebby]

The abstract with the thick lines looks like a bit of stained glass window. The center bit looks fine. But, if you really want to change it, you can pull some, if not most of the color up with some blu-tak (It's a putty used to attach posters to walls without using tape or nails.) I've even pulled up color with a kneaded eraser like I would on graphite. Doesn't pull as much color but will lighten the color considerably allowing the addition of other colors.

[ullahennig]

Thanks everyone for your encouraging and motivating comments! DrDebby, I really wanted to get a result like a bit of stained glass window. So if my piece looks a bit like that I am satisfied! And I just want to say that I'm so happy to have found this category (and WetCanvas in general!)! Love the friendly and supportive atmosphere.

[JamieWG]

Ulla, thank you for sharing your CP experiments with us! Can you tell us the sizes of the sketches, what kind of paper you're using, and the brand/line of colored pencils?

Jamie

[ullahennig]

Hi Jamie,
it's sketch and watercolour paper roughly the size of 3,9 x 5,9 inches. I use the following cp brands:

• Faber-castell Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils
• Fabel-castell Polychromos coloured pencils
• Derwent coloursoft pencils.

More than one year ago I bought a set of 12 F-C watercolour pencils, and bought some additional ones in more shades of brown. Then, half a year ago, I wanted to try out coloured pencils and ordered some Derwent coloursoft pencils via the internet (Berlin is a big city, but hasn't got stores which sell Derwent pencils, so I had to order them online). About three weeks ago I got hooked on coloured pencils and bought some additional Polychromos.

[ullahennig]

Here's the next one, a blue snake, totally out of my imagination (there are no blue snakes, I know!) As you can see, the paper is rather rough, and there's a lot of texture shining through.

I experimented with the various shades of blue for the snake and shades of yellow-brown-orange for the rock.

[DrDebby]

Can't be an artist without an imagination. Love the blue snake. Does the texture of the paper bother you? Some people don't like the white showing through on their colored pencil drawings.