paintings prints and stuff

  Summer's End,   Derwent Artbars and Studio pencils in a Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook This one was done with Derwent's new Artbars in an A4, natural white, Alpha series S&B sketchbook.   This one has 100lb paper, which took the washes very well, it seems to take all sorts of media without complaint - though I do admit a deeper love of the lusciousness of the heavy 180lb Beta and Delta series!   I have a 'thing' about nice paper :>) This was done from a digital image I showed some time back, moving on, not just copying but letting the language of marks of the media make changes.   I'm really liking the Artbars.   There is a little glazing and line from Derwent's Studio pencils in there too - but mostly Artbars used wet and dry. You can see a review of Artbars that I did here, with further work using them.

Autumn Woods: Derwent Inktense pencils and Studio pencils in a Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook I'd heard about S&B sketchbooks from American friends but they haven't been available in this country - and shipping costs made them out of the question.   They will soon be available here and I've got some to try out.  :>)   This is one of the Beta Series.   Heavy natural white paper with a rough surface. Curled up in the armchair, (it has been very cold here :>(   following a week of summer temperatures and sunshine) I decided to see how they behaved with my Derwent Intense pencils, with Studio pencils used over the intial washes and marks.   The answer was ...  so far, love this book!  The paper was delicious to work on, heavy and with a nice texture that didn't dominate the image but held marks. I was using a waterbrush from Derwent so the washes weren't very wet but there was a fair amount of water slosh...

Digital experiment with small abstracts. Vivien Blackburn I'm working out options for this series.   The original ones were manipulated in photoshop, playing with colour variations and rotating/flipping. I quite like the idea of doing a series of 9 framed liked this on either black or white. Which do you prefer for the background - black or white? I think the white background has a clean freshness but the black has an added glow.  

Another in series of tiny abstracts, playing with the interaction of colour, shape and space This one was done using Derwent's studio pencils over an inktense underpainting, on Fisher 400 paper.   I like the way that Derwent's Coloursoft pencils work with this paper better, though these worked well, the Coloursofts were richer when used like this (not so on normal paper). Working with the underpainting allows me to create the same sort of effects that I can achieve in oils - changing subtly or overlaying very different colour opaquely,  and is a really useful way of playing with colour and ideas.   and another variation with the same materials  and there's more ..... I may arrange them in a grid, keeping each element small with the grid black or a deep linking colour - decisions decisions .... what do you think?

Feathers, Derwent Studio pencils, approximately 7 inches square  detail   Derwent have given me some of their products to experiment with and review, so I'm like a child in a sweetie shop.  : > ) Some I have used for a long time but some are new to me.   I remember as a very small child visiting their pencil museum and my father explaining how 'lead' pencils were actually graphite - and owning coloured pencils made by them.  In those days obviously just the basic range - not the artists ones I choose now.   I can't remember a time when I didn't draw.   One of my earliest memories is posting scribbled 'letters' to my father when I was 18 months old and he was away in Gibraltar with the RAF. Here I've been taking a look at their Studio coloured pencils      The above study of feathers was done with a limited range of colours - unfortunately scanners and cameras find pale colo...