bloowabbit: Bradbury Art

Showing posts with label Bradbury Art. Show all posts

Friday, 10 March 2017

Watercolours

I'd been wanting to pick up a decent set of watercolours for a while. Had already bought a watercolour pad and sketched a pencil drawing ready for painting only to find my stash of watercolours had dried up in their tubes.

On the opening day of Bradbury Art's new premises at No4 Callender Street, Belfast, I called in and bought a set of W&N's Cotman watercolour pans with a water brush. It's a compact traveller set with no room for further pans but it's a good set to begin using this medium as it has a nice range of colours.

Alizarin Crimson, Diox Violet, Lemon Yellow Hue, Yellow Ochre, Sap Green, Viridian Hue, Ultramarine, Turquoise, Burnt Sienna, Chinese White, Paynes Grey, Lamp Black.

Colours ranged through warm and cool tones and I was especially happy to see it contained Paynes grey - watering down black doesn't always result in the right shade. As the pans are replaceable there is some room for personal choice. The colours when mixed with water are vibrant yet with a good transparency. At £19.99 I felt this little set was well priced though I probably could find it online for less. There is some satisfaction though about supporting a local business, not only investing in your community, but building up a relationship with your local art shop can benefit the artist with their wide knowledge of new products/mediums.

Pencil sketch had been drawn a few months earlier on a Daler Rowney Aquafine Texture 300g/m2 pad and was an adaptation of 'girl and bee' drawing. I wanted the watercolour application to be loose and soft so just before painting I erased a lot of the darker lines. The water brush was interesting to use. I didn't need to keep dipping the brush into water while painting. But the quality is not as good as sable or synthetic brushes I've used before. Handy to have if travelling but not ideal.

I laid down a base layer of colour and then worked layer after layer. The quality of paint was good as the transparency stayed as I worked and didn't become muddied. I really enjoyed making puddles of colour and allowing them to dry on top of other previous puddles. I was happy enough with this exercise and am keen to try using masking fluid with watercolour. If I would improve anything it would be the bee's wings which I should have left transparent, showing hints of face and flowers behind. Also I applied colour to the figure's neck and altered the shape which I tried remedying by building up a layer of white watercolour but it might have been more effective to use white gouache and then overpaint with watercolour.

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Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Winsor & Newton Pigment Marker

I started out with a small range of Winsor & Newton pigment markers plus a white blender and a clear blender. There is a lovely transparency to these markers and they overlap well. The clear blender seems to dissipate the colour similar to copic blenders. The white blender turns the marker colour into a tint of the original however using it on top of damp pigment marker tends to agitate the surface of the paper. For this test I'm using Bristol Board. Check out Using Colour Theory for more info on shades, tints and tones and using primary colours to create other colours.

The doodle I chose to redo in pigment markers is of a large eye, bird and feathers. I felt the colours I had in the pigment markers could be mixed to create the purple and green and orange. I've been wanting to practise inking eyes as I feel my current style is simplistic.

Tried out a little pre-redo (is that a word?), a thumbnail, and am experiencing how these markers work. I recommend doing this before launching into the final piece - something I often am too impatient to do! Perhaps I should start a sketchbook just for trying out different mediums as it would be a good record I could refer back to. Some of the markers seem darker at one end than the other which might be down to my storing them vertically rather than horizontally.

Invested in an A3 Bristol Board sketchpad - Bradbury Art had a sale! I intended doing a version of the doodle in the centre of the sheet leaving quite a lot of white around - there was something about the thumbnail against white. But before I realised it I was working on the entire sheet so the finished image is now A3.

Did a little bit of researching how an eye looks up close and it's okay, have added a few extra effects to it. Changed the bird quite a bit, again after doing some visual research. The feathers have become smaller and more realistic and the sun is softer, more impressionistic - almost like a flower.

The range of tints and tones by overlapping these markers was good and the results didn't get muddy. The darkest colour in the eye is from overlapping the blue and adding red and then blue again on top which gave a dark purple-blue, redder than indigo, meaning I didn't have to use black at all. I did use some white gel pen to touch up the small white areas in the eyes and also to outline the bird and add highlights to the feathers.

The surface of the page was roughened in a few spots but I think this is due to impatience on my part, not waiting until the colours dry before reapplying. I'll certainly use this type of marker again because of the vibrancy of the colour and the clarity of colour even after layering.

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Wednesday, 31 August 2016

Letraset Inks

Chose a mermaid doodle to redo using Letraset Inks in blues and greens. The bottles of ink were in the sale bin of my local art shop, Bradbury Art, and I'd seen TheMonsterPaws on YT use marker ink refills to add interest in the background of an artwork (link below).

An assistant in the shop said she'd tried them and found them very difficult to work with for as soon as they touched the paper they dried and couldn't be manipulated. I reckoned there might be a way to use that quality to my advantage and looked forward to experimenting.

Used Crayola Pro to draw the updated version of the mermaid adding more detail to her face and neck than before. I scanned the image to be able to print out more copies if needed. I was aware that it might all go horribly wrong!

I found the bottles difficult to use as they dripped very easily, but they were only designed to refill alcohol markers, probably as a one time use. I tried at first to copy how TheMonsterPaws poured her inks and found the paper became saturated quite quickly. Plus, as there was little or no control over how the inks ran the result was very hit and miss. This technique might be better suited to a sheet of paper larger than A4 and with more space around the central image - the inks 'went over the lines' on my drawing.

Using a fine paintbrush I then tried dropping ink onto the bristles but the ink went everywhere! Blue and green fingers - it all came off with brush cleaner and soap. I ended up using an empty blister pack from calcium tablets that I take and the small blisters were the perfect size to half fill with ink so that I could dip the paintbrush into. However, these inks are alcohol based and evaporate very quickly so speed is needed. I did find that by adding a few drops of fresh ink the dried ink reanimated and I could use it again.

Bristol Board absorbed the ink well and the inks dried fast - the liquid version of working with alcohol markers. I'd like to try using masking fluid to protect areas of the drawing before using the Letraset Inks in the background. The effect of this background suited the underwater image but I'll need more practice to use them successfully in other drawings. I do like the inks and I'm itching to use them again.

Links:

TheMonsterPaws YT video - checkout 2.40 into video

Bradbury Art store, Belfast

Letraset Ink

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