I know many of you have HEAT in June…at my house my furnace still comes on in the morning! I wish summer would get here, but in the meantime, here’s some wintry inspiration for those who need to cool off a bit!
New class
This came about because of the new Colored Pencil Winter Wonderland class – when I got out my Gamsol I noticed it was below 1/4 full! While that’s plenty for a few drawings, I always panic when things start looking low…and I started looking around at other colored pencil artist sites to see what solvents they like – and picked out a few to try.
And now…the Video
Spoiler alert: Gamsol was not immediately surpassed by any of these in performance, especially not by price.
Sketch out a bunch of snowballs – stacking 2 seemed to be cuter than 3 to me, as well as easier. Color up the blobs with blue – I started with dry blending from powder first, then added the solutions to each snowman.
Make hats and scarves for them! Different styles, materials, textures. Have fun! And don’t forget to use the leftover pigment on the brush to make the fluffy pompoms on hats.
Then add mittens – and give them things to hold! How cute are they with their art supplies?
Supplies
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TGIF! What a brutal couple of weeks it’s been eh? I had to find something to help get me through it and often just doodling does me a lot of good; not a ton of thinking to do, and I can still come out with something beautiful as I process thoughts about all the violence happening nowadays.
I stuck with analagous colors so I wouldn’t be fighting neutral mixes. Blending was almost entirely pencil until I got to the end – a few spots needed more contrast, since pencil on Yupo doesn’t get very dark, and a couple marker strokes helped. It was super hard to blend into mediums to get transitions though, so I wouldn’t use much Copic for something like this; I had to fight to fix some chunky marker lines.
This is the before and after…
ICYMI
In case you missed the socials this week, here you go!
It’s Earth Day week…so I’ll be playing with things that grow all week long here and on social media! Be sure to follow along for some crazy ideas.
Before we start….there’s a new class and digi stamps!
It’s spring….let’s do some coloring of flowers! I just launched a brand new Realistic Flowers Class — in colored pencil this time (last month was the Copic class with different flowers). If you only need the images and not the class, check out the Flower printables to color! (Should you accidentally buy the images then decide to take the class, just email and I’ll refund the digistamps fee.)
The simplest – two color tulips, two color greens!
The colors:
Wreath #2
I used Polychromos pencils for this one….
Colors used:
Wreath #3
A little more expressive and loose! Colors are listed in the supply list below.
Inspiration collections of flowers
These pages each have dozens of ideas for florals – if you’re in need of inspiration, have at it!
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
Easter’s a-coming up, and I’ve been in that springy frame of mind lately – so I thought perhaps drawing a funny Easter chickie and his egg could be a lot of fun! And I’m drawing today on a totally unexpected surface (at least to me it’s unexpected!) – SANDPAPER! You can draw this on any paper of course, but see what you have in the garage and try it out.
Both of these use Polychromos Pencils – you can also convert the colors to Prismacolor or other brands:
The first one is drawn on an art paper – UArt Premium Sanded Pastel Paper. It’s a bit pricey for just playing with on cards, but a very nice surface for drawing. It’s a 400 grit paper, and the higher the grit the more detail you can get. (On Friday I’ll be comparing four of these sanded art papers!)
This next one is actual 1000 grit purple sandpaper – you can find some in your garage, quite possibly! In coming months as we get deeper into inflationary times, I am hoping to find more fun art projects you can create with things you already have around, and this is one of them. I’m sure the woodworker in the family won’t mind lending out a sheet of sandpaper to your art studio!
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
If you’ve ever tried to replicate a tutorial – mine or anyone else’s – and been frustrated that it just doesn’t come out the same….you’re not alone. Yes it happens to me, too!
I’ve put together a little demo that will show you that you can use the same colors to create different skintones – just by altering how MUCH of them is used. Same colors! Watch and see.
Brands and individual hues. Sometimes even how OLD the supplies are; some change over time.
Techniques – pressure, layering
What you see in a video usually isn’t “all” there is. Hours of video often get cut down to 10 minutes, so there could be steps unseen.
Colored pencils can be affected by the pressure applied, not just in one layer but in successive layers.
Copics can be affected by layering too – sometimes the order can really change things a lot.
For patrons
If you’re a patron and missed it yesterday….the two larger drawings with the whole image are in a video over there. Happy Valentines Day!
The bottom line
Don’t get frustrated. It’s not always “you”!! Too many people leave a video tutorial thinking they’re a failure, they’ll never be an artist, they just aren’t talented. But it could be a lot of factors that don’t translate into video teaching in a ten minute demo!
It’s why I believe in classes. Where I can teach and re-teach. Show several examples of the same thing in successive lessons. It helps to see things a few times, and let them sink in.
Artventure App
My new app is out there – and hopefully the walk-through at the end of today’s video will help explain a little more of how to use it! It’s a platform that only allows me to customize some parts, and some things are getting fixed right now – I’m learning how to update it through the app stores, but it takes a bit of learning! You can download it for iOs or Android – enjoy!
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
I save photos from Paint My Photo all the time – folders and folders and folders on their site! I categorize them all kinds of ways….and this one has been on my want-to-do list for a while. I’d thought about watercolor but those big trees were too intimidating – so I tried it in colored pencil instead!
I love how this one came out – all epic and frosty! I’ve got some tips in here for making trees with depth, and of course using erasers to create some highlights.
A new helpful habit I’ve gotten into in the last few months as I’m creating pieces that take a little longer – using this little cup to hold a working group of pencils, pens, and tools! With this new schedule of video creation, I bounce around in what I’m working on – sometimes a few days in a row on something, slip in some small midweek reels or projects as I do, and I keep it all together so I don’t have to scramble to remember which tools, which colors, etc, that I had out before I popped over to another project. I tried to order me another one of these little cups from Pantone with this year’s color – very peri! – but I was too late! It was already out of stock. Anyone know of a shop that sells cool cortado cups? This one needs a buddy!
These are the colors I used for this project…I do have my pencils swatched out like this, even though the lead color on pencils really does show pretty accurate color, but these chips colored on Stonehenge show what they look like colored up – though I don’t tend to pull out swatches, I just grab pencils.
My Afmat pencil sharpener is still working well – but I’m always on the lookout for “better” so let me know if you see something with potential! The electric eraser battle has turned out really evenly thus far – one of the two I bought is 1/3 the price of the other and seems to work exactly the same. At some point I may find out the difference between them in performing a specific task of some kind but for now – I think the Mont Marte is just fine.
The original is for sale HERE, and prints can be purchased HERE.
ICYMI
In case you missed what I posted on social…here are links! Not many folks were interested in Monday’s video – if you’re someone who had a busy week and put it off, be sure to go check it out! (It’s lonely.)
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
