New pencil sharpener in the house! This one-hole sharpener from Staedtler arrived and I had just been bemoaning that my other handhelds were losing their edge; it’s very normal for handhalds to do that, but fortunately they aren’t expensive to replace. This one’s quite nice! And if you like a 2-hole sharpener there’s a two-hole version as well.

After a month of almost-only painting in watercolor, I was tickled to get out the sharpener and give it a try, and I’m quite pleased! I got out my Stonehenge pad and decided to look through something summery to draw – my pics from Puerto Rico are the last ones I’ve taken. I can hardly believe that 2017 was my last real vacation! 🙁 

Tutorial: Blending Colored Pencil & new sharpener – Coconut Palm Tree

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

Blending tools

I used a few methods of wet or liquid blending; a stump to apply the blending solution, as well as a cotton ball. Sometimes I use the wet blending early in the process, sometimes as a finishing touch; when drawing on TOP of the solvent area, it really makes the pencil pop nicely on that primed surface.

Here I used the Winsor and Newton SansOdor which is technically not without odor. But it’s nice and works the same as gamsol from all I can tell. I put someon a cotton ball in a covered jar — that keeps me from spilling on my art.

Colored pencils

This is completed with Faber Castell Polychromos pencils – love their vibrance, and the greens work nicely together when you balance out warms and cools. I just wish my local store would get a cream pencil in stock – I keep forgetting when I place a Blick order, since it’s just one pencil! But I might have to resort to that, since my store isn’t playing nice with restocking…ha.

Subscribe to receive blog posts by email:

Coconut Palm Tree tidbit

In case you’re just reading and not watching the video: I figured out something WEIRD when looking at my Puerto Rico photos: the palm trees on the island have a curve to the tree trunks as if they’re reaching out to sea. Which is a little odd in the first place since most trees lean away from the wind. But the weirder part is they ALL lean outward from the island toward the sea. What’s up with that?? They don’t care about where the wind is?

A little googling told me that coconut palm trees try to get as close to the sea as they can, because they propagate by dropping coconuts into the water, which then travel to other islands to plant themselves and grow. How cool is that?

So next time you see a palm tree leaning – give it a round of applause for its dedication to progeny! 

Supplies

1. Polychromos Pencils
2. Polychromos Hex Chart
3. Staedtler pencil sharpener 
4. Staedtler two-hole pencil sharpener 
5. Stonehenge Drawing Paper AMZ  • BLICK
6. Blending stumps: Blick • AMZ 
7. Blending stump sanding block 
8. Jars for solvents 
9. Winsor and Newton Sansodor