I was feeling pretty down for a couple of days last week. I couldn’t concentrate on much of anything, much less conjure up interest. On the second morning of this spell my sister asked me what I was planning to do that day. Without really thinking about it and having no idea where my response was coming from, I simply said “I’m going to draw chipmunks.”
She said “Oh, that’s a good idea,” though I have no idea why she thought so or even if she really did.
In any case, I spent several hours over that day and the next two drawing chipmunks in my art journal. On these two pages, I guess the journal became more of a sketchbook.
Not long after I started, I developed a plan – or a raison d’etre – for the drawings. I long to find the best way to add color to pencil drawings. So, having four little drawings to experiment with, I thought I could test different approaches. And that would tie into my recent and somewhat reluctant purchase of alcohol markers.
The method for adding color to pencil drawings that I’ve mostly used is transparent acrylic wash over the pencil. This works pretty well, but I’ve found I need to spray the finished pencil drawing with workable fixative then cover that with two coats of matte gel medium. After that, my pencil is protected and fully visible and the surface takes the acrylic washes really well. (Without the matte gel medium, the washes just bead up over the fixative.)
I’ve tried watercolor and pencil, but there’s a problem. The water in the watercolor will smear the pencil unless I only use hard pencils. I can’t fix the pencil before applying the watercolor because then the watercolor won’t “take” to the paper. And if I only use hard pencils, the drawing isn’t very satisfactory. I could start with only a line drawing with hard pencil, then apply the watercolor, then come back with more pencil, but I haven’t tried that. I'm not sure why not.
Colored pencil is an option, but it doesn’t seem like the graphite pencil would really play a role in that combination. The only way I’ve used graphite and colored pencil together is by sketching with graphite as the first step to what is actually a colored pencil piece.
Now we come to my excuse for buying alcohol markers. Maybe they could be used over pencil! But after purchasing some, I saw a video which warns against using alcohol markers over graphite. The danger is that the marker will pick up some of the graphite and the marker will be ruined. If that’s the case, then there are two possibilities:
Proceed as with acrylic washes over pencil. But what if the alcohol in the markers dissolves the matte gel medium?
Or
Proceed as with watercolor and pencil. But then I’m back to a three step process: light, hard pencil; then the markers; then more pencil.
As I’m writing this, I’m thinking to myself “blah, blah, blah!” Probably all I really need to do is work on getting better with the pencil and acrylic wash.
But as far as where I am now, I find myself reluctant to risk “ruining” my drawing, so maybe I’ll do what I should have done in the first place: just scribble some pencil and try the different media with scribbles rather than with drawings I’ve become invested in.
I'll most likely proceed with that, but meanwhile, I'm grateful to the chipmunks for standing by me during my malaise!
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