Wild colours
Wild colours. Watercolour pencils used wet and dry on watercolour paper, Ulla Hennig, April 2012
I hope you don’t think I’ve gone mad, but somehow I could not resist. No reference. I placed various glasses and other round objects on the watercolour paper, went around them with a pencil in order to get circles. Then I coloured them with dry watercolour pencils and applied a wet brush. At the very end I applied some dry coloured pencils. It was fun!
Happy furry being
Furry being. Watercolour and coloured pencils on watercolour paper. April 2012, Ulla Hennig
I am participating in the April monthly Class in the watercolour forum at WetCanvas, and the subject is “fur”. So I had to think of anything furry. Somehow the image of a happy furry being arose in my mind, and after a rough pencil sketch I did it with my watercolour pencils. The size of the paper is quite small – about the size of a postcard – and so I had difficulties with painting all the hairs. Note to self: Buy a thinner brush and keep your pencils pointed!
I hadn’t thought of the background when I did the furry creature. I then added the branches and the blossoms/leaves/fruits. The last step was to work over it with my coloured pencils.
Colour Swatches
Colour swatch based on burnt siena.
The thing with watercolour pencils is that the colour they have when you apply them as “normal” coloured pencils and the colour they have when you wet the strokes are pretty much differing from each other. That is the reason why I put up a colour swatch for a landscape painting based on the colour “Burnt Siena”.
The first row shows the colour mixes in order to get darker hues (they don’t look as dark on the scan as they do in reality); the second row shows colours you get when you add red and yellow, and the third row shows colours you get when you add strokes of emerald, light green or juniper green to strokes of burnt siena.
Of course the colour mix also depends on the pressure you apply on the pencil. So the colour swatch can only serve as a kind of orientation.
Another Dragon
Another dragon. Watercolour pencils (wet) on Pastel paper. Ulla Hennig, March 2012
Another dragon, this time painted with watercolour pencils on wet pastel paper. I didn’t know in the beginning whether the paper could be used for wet watercolour pencils at all. The only thing however was, that I had to wait until the paper was dry in order to see how the colours would look like.
The Fire Flower
The fire flower. Watercolour pencils wet on drawing board. Ulla Hennig March 2012
For I long time I have been using my watercolour pencils dry, but last Sunday I decided to use them wet – which meant painting with them on a wet surface. I’ve watched a few tutorials and the way I did it is not the way recommended by the watercolour pencil specialists. However, I’ve enjoyed experimenting with them – there are many ways to go to Rome, as we in Germany say.
The Eye of the Sun
The Eye of the Sun. Coloured pencils. Ulla Hennig, March 2012
What I had in my head was the eye, symbolizing the sun, streaming light in a kind of waterfall, in which three plants are bathing…
This time I tried something new with the watercolour pencils which I used in addition to “normal” coloured pencils: I dipped them into a small container with water. It is interesting how they differ in producing that rich colour I wanted to achieve. I especially used that technique with the leaves which I did at the end of my working process.
Watercolour Pencils
Man standing - Watercolour pencils. Painted by Ulla Hennig
This time it is not copics, it is watercolour pencils. There is a great website called posemaniacs.com, and I took one of the poses there as a reference.
In the beginning it was a bit strange to use the watercolour pencils again, but then it was fun. I did not use watercolour paper, I used my nice little sketchpad. The water made the paper a bit bumpy, and I haven’t got a scanner and had to take a photo of the painting/drawing, so the background looks a bit uneven.
By the way: You may have noticed that Monday is drawing/painting day on my blog. I decided to publish drawings and paintings on a Monday, photos on a Wednesday and everything design-y on a Friday. Doing it this way helps me to practice all these three creative activities.
