Day Lily on Dura-Lar

I'd never tried using CP on Dura-Lar film. Used it today when my I wanted to capture some of the summer beauty outside. The film is fantastic... it's FAST, smooth, takes about 5 or 6 layers... and you can use the reverse side as well! I colored with purple on the reverse side to create some shadowed areas; with red behind the leaf to create darkness.

Benefits? Work is FAST. You can erase mistakes. You can draw in a sketchbook and then trace your work... and you're ready to go. I used Prismacolor, Polychromos, and Lyra pencils on it... no problem

The only drawback I can see is that every mark shows. I'll have to work more carefully next time, using better strokes. Next step... Yupo paper. Wheee!

Members Show @ Ann Kullberg's site

I was happy to just make the deadline for Ann Kullberg's annual Members Show. Each member was allowed one entry only. I submitted "Shadow Play", which is based on a photo I took a couple of summers ago. Like anyone who does photography, I love shadows and what they say about the light that causes them.

I'd love to hear your comments on this. Enjoy the show -- there are some STUNNING works there!

Now what do I do with all the empty tins and boxes?

Forget my last post. I had a brainstorm today and just whipped up the perfect organizer for my colored pencils. The organizer has 18 sections and the colors are (L-R, back to front):

• pale colors; pinks; purples; neutrals (greens and yellows)
• yellows and oranges; reds; blues (dark); blues (light); greys (French, other); neutrals (browns and reds)
• greens (dark); greens (light); blacks, whites, metallics; greys (warm); greys (cool)

 Was this ever easy to make! I used the cover of a standard box of photocopy paper as the container; the measurements are 18"x11.5". Found a large piece of cardboard that had probably come with a shipment of watercolor paper ages ago. Cut two strips 18"x3.5" and five strips 11.5"x3.5". It was a simple matter to snip teeny pieces out of each strip and then put them together, and voilà! Instant organizer. I love it!

It's portable, not heavy at all, and can go everywhere with me. Would you believe that it currently holds 324 colored pencils? Yup: 132 Prismacolors, 120 Faber-Castell Polychromos, and 72 Derwent Coloursoft pencils. I can quickly find the right color group and then it's easy to compare the pencils with each other to figure out which ones I need.

I will probably end up dividing the yellows and oranges into two groups, but that's a project for another day, along with strengthening the sides of the container so that they don't bow out quite as much.

Color me happy!

Colored Pencil Tips

I've just been reading this month's issue of Colored Pencil, a wonderful magazine created by Ann Kullberg*. Each issue contains a gallery of CP work, and following a link to a painting of a monarch butterfly (very much like one I'm trying to work on) brought me to Denise Howard's website and some amazing CP art.

One post in particular caught my eye, on organizing colored pencils. I have collected several sets in the last two years, thanks to a generous friend and my two wonderful cats, but have to keep them in their original containers since I am torn between organizing by color (meaning that different brands are together) and displaying by brand (in which case I could as well keep them in the sets). This post expanded on a notion that I've seen elsewhere to use PVC pipe, but this time the pipe is really wide (2.5 inches). And now I have the happy notion of placing them on a circular piece of foamcore board for better access to the pencils. I'm already happy imagining a nice lazy susan where I can have pencils sorted by primary and secondary colors (maybe even warm and cool, hmmm), neutrals, greys, and in the center a logical place for rulers, erasers, and the other accoutrements that we tend to acquire.

Just thinking about this has my creative juices flowing, so it's just as well that I won't be able to go to Home Depot for a few days yet.

*I cannot recommend Ann Kullberg's website and magazine highly enough. I've been subscribing to Colored Pencil (formerly From My Perspective) since the beginning of 2010, and recently took advantage of a marvellous sale to purchase 11 CDs of back issues, so now I have the entire set. (Yes, I like to collect sets.)

Well, they're not shakers but they do the job

The Every Day in May challenge is on Day 4 and I'm keeping up so far. I dug out my poor little combination salt shaker and pepper grinder... both sections were empty. I season my food when I cook it (whenever that is), so there's no need to add these condiments at the table. And it's a pain to keep refilling them; the jumbo size works well!

Lessons learned from today's exercise:
1. I'm getting a bit better with the darks. I'm somewhat hampered by my range of colors since I'm using Koh-i-Noor colored pencils and there's no rich deep red like Tuscan Red or Alizarin Crimson. Nonetheless, I think I conveyed the idea of the multicolored grains without drawing each one. (Yes, look carefully and you'll see that I started out doing that. Found a quicker way.)
2. These colored pencils are quite soft and thus don't maintain a sharp point. I'm inclined to try Derwent Studio pencils another time to see if they'll work a bit better on this paper.
3. The paper! 74lb which should take a few layers before crumbling. I think it does, but I don't think it has a really nice texture. It's not rough. Just... somewhat dry. And gets dirty VERY easily!
4. I do like the composition. It could do with some improvements in many ways, but I like cutting off both containers at the sides and then one at the top and the other at the bottom. I may explore this idea further.

Koh-i-Noor colored pencils and Micron pen

How I keep fit

When you have two sets of stairs in your house, you HAVE to climb them and thus you get an automatic fitness workout. Thank heavens!! So, welcome to the top of the stairs leading to the second floor landing. Once again, my darks just aren't quite there. The flowers are a bit iffy as well. I added the pot because the area seemed bare, but obviously I didn't have a real model to draw from! Baby steps.

Koh-i-Noor colored pencils.

More power to the plugs!

Day TWO of the Every Day in May challenge: Draw a power plug. These two were side by side, peacefully on my desktop, and so naturally there was an instant title...

I found a sketchbook I haven't used in a few months, so I decided to make an EDiM kit: Koh-i-Noor colored pencils (set of 24), pen, pencil and various necessary accoutrements.