Thank you, Debby, Pat, for liking this tree. I have never really done trees well with colored pencils. I think for something so voluminous, it has to be watercolor.
This one I started yesterday morning after my fish dream.
Stillman & Birn Alpha 11x14 inch hardbound sketchbook 100 lb
I thought I would have lots of space to flesh out the fishes but the moment I put in the algae, I ran out of room.
I should have used finer brush.
First layer - Liquitex yellow acrylic background - just because I'm tired of color running off or being lifted when I add layers of watercolor. Once stabilized, I felt more free doing the algae.
Second layer - various Daniel Smith watercolor - soitite, green gold, jadeite. All my favorite green hued ones. The algae are done wet on wet - a good 4 layers and the paper did not peel at all. Right, I used Chinese brush because it has a better taper.
Put a sheet in between when it's no longer glossy but still damp - and closed it and put it under layers of books.
Today, I dug it out, nice and flat and did the fishes with Holbein oil pastels. I enhanced the colors just a tinge.
The next one, I did it in Stillman & Birn 9x12 inch Alpha 100 lb hardbound.
This is the back side of the first page and it has some howling wolf in a dark watercolor background. And so it is really neat that I turn it over and it doesn't show at all.
This is some kind of boxer in a sports magazine but it does not have much likeness. I was fascinated with the dark skin tone for this sportsman.
First layer - started with Prismacolor Artstix for the portrait
Second layer - tried to blend with Prismacolor pencil portrait set. It doesn't blend.
Third layer - hard bristle brushing. Sort of soften it but still not blended. I didn't want to use solvent at all because it might affect the underpage.
Fourth layer - Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencil with ultra sharp points that doesn't dull every second and did a certain amount of hatching and details. I got to use bronze and gold abundantly!!! Prisma nor Lyra nor Luminance has those two exact colors that I wanted. So glad I have so many sets of pencils.
Fifth layer - the other reason I really wanted to try this piece is to how to lay a dark dark background to the piece with watercolor without evidence of poor brushwork. Took my one inch watercolor brush and put in Daniel Smith watercolor - a first layer of madder rose/red/brown of some sort. I am a patient girl today. I waited until the layer dries before I went back for a second layer.
Sixth layer- repeat of this reddish color and even brushed over the portrait
Seventh layer - a horrid smelling M. Graham Sienna of some sort. Geez....and pretty colorless. Brushed over the portrait too.
Eighth, Ninth, Tenth layer - French ultramarine. Last layer I brushed over the portrait too and then mopped up the highlights quickly.
Still not dark enough.
Dug and dug and found my Daniel Smith Lunar Blue - my absolute favorite.
Eleventh layer - Juicy Lunar Blue avoiding the portrait.
Put it into photoshop to enhance just a bit.
I'm not sure if I'll do more colored pencil work on it. I'll let it rest for now and think. Perhaps next week.
A total of 7 layers of watercolor! Not bad. I wouldn't use Delta for this piece because it's so rough a texture. Alpha still remains as my favorite sketchbook of all Stillman.
Linear Mode
