Thursday 4 February 2010

barking up the wrong tree?

No pictures again this morning (hopefully later if light improves today), having a little crisis of confidence at the moment (whats new!) having spent goodness know how many hours on my college commission, which is a piece for a local wildlife sanctury, consisting of two children and various animals in front of a large tree and landscape background, I am not at all happy with it. Possibly something to do with the fact that after several false starts in pastel I decided to attempt it in coloured pencils, a medium I have only dabbled with a couple of times without much success and as its on A1 mount board a tad over ambitious me thinks! The composition is now working and I have put in the sky but am not sure on the lay down, after about 3+ very light layers of pencil it is looking quite smooth, but I still have some white showing through making it look "crayony" and its becoming a little waxy, so I dont think more layers are a good idea, not sure whether to carry on, revert to the pastel one with the composition that I don't like or start another one in pastel but with the new composition!

4 comments:

Sue Clinker said...

Hi Geraldine, I'm just back from hols and playing catch up here. Love the pic of Maisie at the top of your blog :o)

With cp background have you tried using cp shavings, rubbed in lightly with cotton wool. You can grate the cp on a metal tea strainer, pick up a few shavings on the cotton pad and apply lots of light layers till you get the depth you want. It goes on quicker and doesn't get so waxy. (Just a thought - you may have tried this already of course). Look forward to seeing your pic soon

geraldine.boley@googlemail.com said...

Thanks Sue,
hope you had a lovely break ;-) and thank you for the tip, will try this out. I haven't heard of it before, but haven't really done much in the way of CP. I have some prismas and some FC poly's and thought it was about time I made a real effort to get to grips with them, I choose to use them on this big piece as I thought "sink or swim" and I would get plenty of practice if nothing else!

Jan said...

I'd not heard of this before, Sue. As much as I dislike the time involved in good cp work, I will definitely remember this tip!

Hope you get it completed to your satisfaction, Geraldine, Sometimes when you still have the little white spots you can try a bristle brush to blend then out. A short-haired bristle stencil brush works well. Also, taking your colored pencil with a very sharp point and working in tight circles (lightly)can also help to cover the white spots.

Good luck!

geraldine.boley@googlemail.com said...

Thanks Jan
have tried using a blender which has helped a little, will try the brush. Cannot do anymore with that particular colour as I have used the WHOLE pencil!!
Have another one on order so hoping it wont take too long to arrive.