Treehouse - Many Months in the Making
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@Kristen-Lango I have not seen a class on type. I recently bought some Prismacolour premiere pencils but have not used them, one of the art students at my University uses pencils and does amazing work, I asked him which did he think was better- Faber Castell , as I had inherited a box and Prismacolor and he reckoned Faber Castell, so I have been using the latter until I can get around to seeing the advantages of prismacolour. They almost seem like they are oil based, and so I imagine they have to be used in a particular way.
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@Kristen-Lango I wonder if you have considered creating a background layer of colour separately, and then separate drawings of the house and Witch? In this way you could manipulate them more in the image. It is just a thought and an idea that was recommended to me by an illustrator, it gives the artist a lot more freedom to manipulate things. When I did my first image of a robot I drew each part separately on different layers, which allowed me to move it around and even copy and paste and flip the parts of the image. Maybe, like me you are looking to find a happy medium between digital and traditional?
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@PenAndrew I’m a colored pencil artist and if you have questions I’d gladly share what I’ve learned along the way. I use Polychromos, luminance, lightfast, Pablo’s and started with prismacolors.
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@AngelinaKizz Yes! Thanks and yes I know you are an expert with pencils, your treehouse shows that as well as your amazing portraits. Thanks for being open to share. I did buy some prismacolour premier but I am not sure what to do with them, as they are oil based and I think have only used wax based pencils like Derwent, Faber Castell, Caran-Dache pencils. I think I saw the post about Polychromos pencils a couple of weeks after I bought my new set!
I thought prismacolour were the best but now I see there's a whole confusing world of pencils out there. My courses never even taught that there are wax based and oil based pencils. I have never learnt anything about pencils at University or college! -
@PenAndrew
Prismacolors are a wax based pencil, as well as luminance, but Polychromos and Derwent Lightfast are oil based. The difference in use, doesn’t really vary. The one thing I notice with oil based, is that there’s less chance of wax bloom (a white filmy layer that shows up over time and dulls your work). Polychromos is a very sturdy core. If you drop a Polychromos, there’s a very negligible chance that the core will break (if you drop a Prismacolors, it will likely shatter inside the pencil and fall apart as you sharpen it). Polys hold a really beautiful point for much longer than any of my other pencils, so they’re wonderful for doing highly detailed work. Lightfast are oil, but they’re creamier in texture to use. The colors have all been tested to the highest lightfast rating and have been tested to last over 100 years without fading, Their color spectrum is slightly different (I find the brighter spectrum colors to be slightly more muted, but they have talked about their colors having to be tweaked to earn the lightfast rating… they didn’t come out with a blue for at least a year after the first batch of 32 pencils came out). Luminance is the cream of the crop for a wax based pencil. They’re creamy, they lay down so beautifully and whatever their color formula magic is, I find they have a glow to them. I love them the most for portraiture. They’re also the highest lightfast rated wax pencil. That being said, I will do plenty of portraits using Polychromos and Lightfast, it just depends on the details I need to achieve. Or I will mix them, I’ll use luminance for the skin tones, and Polychromos/Lightfast for the hair and clothing.Prismas have lost my business. I started with prismas, and loved them very much. They had a beautiful color spectrum, they layered beautifully, they had decent lightfast ratings, the price was on the more affordable spectrum and they were enjoyable to use. They were purchased by Rubbermaid (I think 5 years ago) and the manufacturing changed. Since Rubbermaid took them over, they just aren’t reliable quality wise. The pencils are hit or miss to having a centred core (if the core is off center they’re awful to sharpen). I bought open stock and struggled to find pencils that weren’t cracked up the wood shaft. They break like crazy. I had one that I sharpened right down to a stub before I even drew with it, so may as well have just thrown my money in the garbage. If you can get decent pencils out of your set, absolutely use them. I just couldn’t keep buying them. And I think that’s where most will say “I prefer these over those”.
Pencils are totally a personal preference and there’s no “ you have to use these to be a successful artist”. I’ve seen incredible work out of Crayola … you just have to love working with your pencil of choice. I do choose the higher priced brands as they have higher lightfast ratings and that bodes well for selling artwork.
When it comes to oil vs wax… the method of use isn’t really different. Mixing them in layers though, they can fight a bit. When you go to burnish all wax, or all oil, they sink beautifully into the paper. If you go to burnish over a mix of wax and oil, the oil tends to not move into the tooth of the paper with the wax. So I would say just try to keep them separate unless you want that oil to stay textured,
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@AngelinaKizz Wow thank you so much Angelina for this run down on things! Even though I've been using my primsacolors steadily for a year now, I still don't feel like I know about the other colored pencil options that exist, so thank you for all this wonderful info!
Also, yes I can totally see what you're talking about with the quality decrease. I remember using prismas years ago and they were definitely of a higher caliber than what they are now.
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Also does anyone have any thoughts on the Rembrandt polycolor colored pencils or the Staedtlers? I've got some of both that I mainly use for thumbnails.
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@AngelinaKizz Thanks Angelina, a really detailed and helpful analysis of the market and products. What do you mean by burnish? I know this to mean something like heating and rubbing metal onto a surface.
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@PenAndrew burnishing is when you go with a heavier hand as one of the last layers to push all of the layers into the tooth of the paper. It marries all the layers of colors together. It’s not necessary to burnish but I like the end result of burnishing. There’s not a whole lot of room for adding more layers after burnishing but I can usually add little hairs, and deepen a wrinkle or creases.
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@AngelinaKizz Thanks! I am so shocked to realise how ignorant I am about many things, there are so many holes in my knowledge. The more I learn about pencils the more i understand why I thought using them wasn't valued, because I just didn't know enough. I can't believed I have used pencils for so long. I honestly didn't know that there was anything to learn about them!
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@PenAndrew I think that’s the best part of art… there’s always something to learn. If we stop learning, we’re either much too arrogant or dead. Haha.
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@AngelinaKizz Yes, it has been the path to my reawakening of art! Despite my 7 years of studying art I saw how ignorant I was after listening to the 100 podcasts, I joined up just after this. What are you studying at University?
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@PenAndrew I’m going to Emily Carr in Canada, they have an illustration program. I’m really enjoying it so far.
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@AngelinaKizz Great, I look forward to seeing your posts. Is this your first formal training in illustration?
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@PenAndrew yes, I’ve never attended university before, and I’ve been a part of SVS for a year and a half now, and I’ve learned so much here. I crave learning all the things… probably more than I have time for.
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@AngelinaKizz Yes, I had this feeling with learning in the past and in the end I could not see anything through in terms of trying to learn online. Then I forced myself to narrow down my courses to things I really wanted to learn, that linked to the arts and teaching. I then found I could learn tonnes more and saw many courses through from beginning to end. I also had to learn what was really important and what was just an interest.
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@AngelinaKizz @PenAndrew I love this whole conversation! It's so refreshing to find you guys and this community who is just so eager to learn.
Not to throw anyone under the bus, but I've been part of a critique group (not affiliated with SVS in any way) for the last 6 months, and they haven't exactly met my expectations on this topic in particular.
I've found that it's somewhat easy to find people who say they want to illustrate for kids but its extremely difficult to find folks who are actually serious about what that means - actively pursuing and embracing everything there is to learn about it.
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@AngelinaKizz I have had a lot of problems with my prismacolor pencils. Just like you said, they break so easily and some are a nightmare to sharpen. Some were even broken when I opened the box. I have always loved the way they blend, so its good to know there are some better options!
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@PenAndrew A lot of this hit me like a tonne of bricks when I first started taking it more seriously. It can be very overwhelming and easy to start doubting yourself (I hear it in you - hahaha) so focus on the exciting part. Never stop learning, and have fun a long the way. I say this because I have a lot of anxiety and I am seriously hard on myself, so remember you're not the only one who feels like they have holes in their knowledge. I am telling this to myself just as much as I am to you!
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@AlliFaith
My daughter is almost 8 and she’s incredibly artistic. I think soon she’ll be showing me the ropes. She’s got perspective skills, shading and light, it’s beyond my comprehension how she’s just got it figured out. So she wanted mommy’s pencils. I don’t want to buy her crayolas, as I think working with nice supplies is really beneficial when you’re serious about your arts, however because she’s so young, I didn’t want to spend 100s yet. So i bought her castle pencils, and honestly, I think they’re quite comparable to prismacolor. I enjoy using them with her, they’re creamy, they’re blendable, they’re quite vibrant… I doubt they have any lightfast rating to them, but my daughter isn’t selling art so that wasn’t a necessary feature to look for. If you’re wanting to try a different budget friendly colored pencil, I’m really impressed with castle.
