Linda Weil 2020 -- Colour Pencil demonstration, Camp Creative NSW
Materials:
- 180gsm Strathmore Tan Toned paper, A3 size
- Prismacolor Premier pencils
- Snow Leopard (personal photos shot at Melbourne Zoo)
One of the exercises and demonstrations I did with, and for, my recent class at Camp Creative in Bellingen NSW was a Snow Leopard in the soft Prismacolor Premier pencils.
I don't use Prismacolor pencils often as I generally find them too soft, but I do like their ability to blend and layer over coloured papers. As I didn't want the class to have to spend too much on different types of paper for this class, I brought along a pad of the Strathmore Tan paper A3. This is a lighter weight paper than I usually work with, but is robust enough to take several layers of pencils. As it is a thinner paper it is possible (just) to use the trace method of transferring a line drawing via a light box or window.
Why draw on toned paper? Well, working on toned paper can lead to a very realistic result. Remember, just as there is no true black in life, neither is there white. There is the sun, and everything else is darker than that. So if your paper is darker than white it gives you an edge in your tonal range. It is easier to push a dark on tone paper, and you can always add a white highlight if you wish. Mistakes made on the original drawing are easier to hide. Because you start with a tone, your drawing time is faster as you don't need to draw that in, it is there for you. You draw the tonal range either side of the paper colour.
One drawback to toned paper is that it can affect the colour hue of your pencil when laid down. So you MUST do a test sheet of your pencils on your chosen paper. So this is how I began...
TEST SHEET:
I trialled both the Prismacolor Premier pencils and the Staedtler Mars Karat pencils on the toned paper. I immediately found that the Prismacolor's laid down a more intense hue than the Karats. The Karat are a watercolour pencil, but I did not want to create wash effects in this drawing so chose the Prismacolor as my choice. To confirm my choice and familiarise myself with how the pencils would react to the paper I did a small test drawing of the leopard's eye.
To achieve a really bright highlight in the eye I tried using a white Uniball gel pen and was quite pleased with the result. I am thinking this pen will work well for the white whiskers as well!
TRACE IN INK
Usually I do a sketch drawing of the subject and draw freehand. This is time-consuming to get correct, so in the interests of speed I chose to trace from my original photo. This is not ‘cheating’ and we can have philosophical discussion about this if you wish - I can certainly draw freehand– but I did want to place all those spots in relatively the correct place and this was the easiest and quickest way to do that.
My trace drawing only needed to be outlines showing the major features of the subject. In this trace I have included all the spots. Because the Strathmore paper is fairly opaque, the outline drawing is done in ink on tracing paper.
APPLY TO PAPER
If you have a light box that is great, I do and used it for this trace. But a bright sunlight window will work for you if you don’t. Placing the traced drawing onto the light box and then the toned paper over it, I lightly traced the outline using an F pencil. (note: pencil lines darker here than actual result).
Placement and composition was a consideration. So the image was placed to the right side of the paper to give me a good balance of positive and negative spaces.
) And yes, I would love to read your pdf. Thanks!