Faerie Talesby *goldenSalamander

Traditional Art / Drawings / Fantasy

Water color pencil (Caran d'Ache Supracolor), Prismacolor on Cold Pressed Fabriano 130 lb. About 7.5x11 inches.

This was a lot of fun. I think I must have been a mermaid in another life. Otherwise doing all of that flowy blowy hair and jewelry wouldn't have been such hilarious fun.

This is flawed. Unless mermaids, swimming all day with that dophin movement are stronger and more flexible than mere mortals...she couldn't be in that exact position. But I was having so much fun with the hair and jewelry and I knew I would never get them the same a second time so........She lives flawed....like mere mortals.

I have several kinds of colored pencil, two brands being a watercolor pencil. I've never used them as such, but have only used them dry and blended slightly with my fingers, mixing them with the other brands. I have been wanting to find someway to get faster so I started this one out with the watercolor pencils, adding water.

Findings: This didn't go exactly like I wanted and I'm not done experimenting. Adding water intensifies the color in a nice and sometimes surprising way. It sinks the color into the paper giving a solid base of color to work on that allows maxiumum built up of multiple layers of pencil. The cold press paper, much rougher than my usual hot press allows the paper to grab a lot of pencil, but roughly creating a looser, more spontaneous vibrant look but less polished. Trade off. What do you want. Note: wetting a fine point brush and picking up pigment from a pencil point and painting it on the paper gives the clean sharp line I have wanted from time to time in other pictures.