Monday 30 November 2009




Course work: Experimented with a tin of twelve Derwent Drawing Pencils. These are more muted than the Derwent Coloursoft Pencils, but handle in a very similar fashion. They blend slightly when rubbed, and are very slightly water-spreadable. The somewhat muted colors would appear to be useful in landscape sketching, where the more-intense Coloursoft pencils might prove less realistic.

A tin of twelve Derwent Graphitint pencils was tested next. I thought that the colors chosen for the tinned set were somewhat strange: three browns, three greys, two greens, indigo, a color a little redder than burnt siena, and reddish and bluish violets. This selection of colors limited testing. Several of the pencils showed striking color differences between the dry application and the brushed-out color. As with the Staedler Karat Aquarelle pencils, results obtained on a scrap of watercolor paper were superior to those on sketchbook paper. The colors did appear more “natural” than similar colors of the Staedler Karat Aquarelle pencils.

I concluded my color experiments with two small sets of pastels, one soft, one hard. I have not worked with pastels before, and was somewhat surprised by their tendency to coat everything within reach with colored dust. Both types of pastels blend easily, and smear very easily. The colors are opaque: only the lighter colors produce optical mixing when laid over others without rubbing. Moisture produces only minimal difference in comparison to dry rubbing. Sketchbook paper is not intended for use with pastels, but nevertheless produced fairly satisfactory results.

Research point: Among the artists who produced detailed drawings are da Vinci, Durer, and George Stubbs. Da Vinci’s notebooks contain such highly-detailed drawings that it has been possible to build some of his proposed machines from them. I remain amazed that he could draw lines as fine with chalk as I can with a crow-quill pen. Durer was a master of the line in portraiture and the figure. Stubbs’ Anatomy of the Horse is still in print, as the detailed drawings it contains have not been excelled. Many others could easily be named.



Summary Observations on Exploring Coloured Media (Check and Log):

A brief summary of color-testing results: (1) proper paper is important, and varies with medium (2) solubility and insolubility are relative terms (3) choosing a medium is very subjective. I found pastels to be expressive, and hope to work with them in a little more depth: they would seem to be particularly useful for capturing a quick impression. I was interested in colored pencils as well: these would probably be the most useful medium for highly detailed work. The very hard lead of the Staedler Karat Aquarelle pencils could produce quite small details if used without water; the softer leads of the Derwent products would require careful attention to sharpening to keep a drawing detailed, but would produce superior color.



Reading:



Ian Simpson Drawing Seeing and Observation (Third Edition)

A & C Black, London, 1992

Pp 7-31



Deborah Haynes Art Lessons

Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 2003

Pp 111-140



Personal Sketchbook work: Half an apple, done with Derwent Coloursoft pencils