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Coloured pencils? (1 Viewer)

matt green

Norfolkman gone walkabout
Anyone regularly using them, and which is the best type to go for?

I was doodling around with some the other day but they were only really a kiddies set that belong to my brothers young daughter! (don't tell;)) I found a considerable amount of pressure was needed to aquire anything like the effectiveness of a regular lead pencil.

Long been admiring Arthurs work among others with coloured pencils, they have the benefit of being easily portable compared to paints, also my thinking being that most of the time you'd only need the basic colours such as brown, red, yellow etc (until I find that Bluethroat!)

I have to state though, they would only ever be used for fieldnotes etc and not intended for a finished work of 'art';)

Lots of art supplies shops in Norwich so any recommendations of brands etc would be much appreciated.

Matt
 
Hi Matt,
I use Derwent Studio. Go to any good art shop and buy them as individual pencils then you can chose the colours you need. When are we going to see some of your feild notes.
 
When are we going to see some of your feild notes.

Mmmm, who knows!!

I'm working on an idea or two for the joint thread (seeing as I rattle on enough on here without actually contributing anything myself) but so far haven't produced anything I want to upload;)

Thanks for the advice..

Matt

edit

Just this minute finished a drawing of a Brent Goose, this is the first time I've actually sat down and completed any picture (apart from dodgy half hearted fieldnotes) of any bird, turned out better than expected so will upload as soon as I have access to a camera.

You've been warned!!!!
 
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Hi Matt,

it has been a long time to use coloured pencils,but if I had to do it again,
I'll use my Faber-Castell Polychromos, in a box of 72, but is also possible to buy them
separately.
Samples of field work executed using them ,could be seen at Field sketches gallery
on my Homepage.

I hope I helped you a little...

Regards

Spizaetos
 

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Hi Matt,

it has been a long time to use coloured pencils,but if I had to do it again,
I'll use my Faber-Castell Polychromos, in a box of 72, but is also possible to buy them
separately.
Samples of field work executed using them ,could be seen at Field sketches gallery
on my Homepage.

I hope I helped you a little...

Regards

Spizaetos

Thanks Spizaetos

Much appreciated, been doing some pencil and biro work today and had great fun!, going to put some decent technical pens and a new set of pencils on the shopping list for next week, so if theres anything left in my wallet I shall make my way to Jarrolds art department for some of those coloured pencils and a new pad!!

The pics uploaded with your reply are just phenominal, for once I shall remain speechless and just enjoy looking at them!

Matt
 
Hi Matt - not really my area I'm afraid - BUT (can never refuse the chance for an unsolicited comment) - get something water-soluble. Use a washable pen, or ink (one that doesn't bleed when wet) - make your outline drawing (just a few lines to demarcate the basic shapes of bird, landscape, building or whatever) and apply your pencil colour swiftly and positively. Get out your CLEAN water pot and nice size 6 brush and wet the colour pencil till it bleeds where you want it to. a great mix of ink line-work, sketchy pencil and full-blown painting. Go on - you know you want it!!! Don't ya, Sir, eh? don't ya??!
 
I enjoy working with colored pencils although, for me, it is sometimes a little difficult to get the "white highlights" into a drawing. Just leaving the area I want highlighted white and working around it with the other colors works ok sometimes. But sometimes the other colors tend to smudge into the area I wish to leave white.

Here is a full picture of a Harpy Eagle I did using colored pencils, (I cropped the head from this picture for my avatar).
 

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Hi Matt - not really my area I'm afraid - BUT (can never refuse the chance for an unsolicited comment) - get something water-soluble. Use a washable pen, or ink (one that doesn't bleed when wet) - make your outline drawing (just a few lines to demarcate the basic shapes of bird, landscape, building or whatever) and apply your pencil colour swiftly and positively. Get out your CLEAN water pot and nice size 6 brush and wet the colour pencil till it bleeds where you want it to. a great mix of ink line-work, sketchy pencil and full-blown painting. Go on - you know you want it!!! Don't ya, Sir, eh? don't ya??!

Thanks Tim

I can envisage some sick and twisted experimentation taking place here!!, as well as much imbibing and dummy throwing;)

(in a kind of Alwyn Crawshaw meets Vincent Price kinda way!!)

Larry, you're Harpy is magic ..I can only dream!

Matt
 
Actually Matt - in return for my sage-like advice, guidance and priceless mentorship regarding a subject I have no idea about - deeeeep breath - how do you, 'The Avatar King', manage to upload your image. I have tried (in the interest of science) to crop and reduce a pic of mine for my own, yours truly, custom avatar. Can't get the damn thing SMALL enough!!!!! (Oh if only the rest of life were that way!) What am I doing wrong - eh?
Cheers in anticipation.
 
Actually Matt - in return for my sage-like advice, guidance and priceless mentorship regarding a subject I have no idea about - deeeeep breath - how do you, 'The Avatar King', manage to upload your image. I have tried (in the interest of science) to crop and reduce a pic of mine for my own, yours truly, custom avatar. Can't get the damn thing SMALL enough!!!!! (Oh if only the rest of life were that way!) What am I doing wrong - eh?
Cheers in anticipation.

Aww well

Firstly you need to resize your chosen image down to 80x80 pixels, there are a number of free downloadable tools you can use for this (I'll try and find a link) As far as cropping is concerned I use the picassa program, really used to sharpen and post edit photos but also comes with a handy cropping fascility.

Trouble is that sometimes the results are less than desirable after all that squashing/cropping etc.

For a free image resizer scroll down and click on image resizer from the menu on the right..

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

And for cropping and general post editing..

http://picasa.google.com/

Once you've got your chosen masterpiece down to the correct size, click on control panel (top right of homepage), then edit avatar etc

Matt
 
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