I walked into Costco the other day and was greeted by one of my favorite sights of the year—Christmas decorations! I’ll admit it’s a little ridiculous to be putting out Christmas decorations in August, but seeing it always gives me a little thrill. Christmas is my favorite time of year, and I’m especially excited this year because I’ll be participating as a vendor at some of our town’s upcoming events, including our Holiday Craft Fair and Equestrian Festival!
I wanted to add some new art to my inventory and have been working this week on a technique in colored pencil that results in a finish that’s more like a painting than a drawing.
After drawing and detailing the horses, I applied mineral spirits to blend the pencil (a q-tip worked great for this!). The mineral spirits “melt” the pencil strokes and allows for smooth blending. Next I laid in the background using layers of Tuscan Red, Burnt Sienna, Dark Brown, and touches of yellow (from the Prismacolor Premier collection). Finally, I used a cotton ball to blend the background colors all together. Once the drawing was dry I did another color layer followed by another mineral spirits application. I was kind of scared that I was going to use too much and ruin the whole thing but my Bristol board stood up really well to the technique!
It was pretty magical watching the colors all melt together under that little cotton swab! I love having the control a pencil provides combined with the color of a painting! I will definitely need to try this technique again on other subjects.
If you want to try it, all you need are soft-core wax or oil-based artist quality colored pencils (such as Prismacolor Premier), Odorless Mineral Spirits (usually in the painting supplies at art/craft supply stores), and cotton swabs. (Cotton balls or a small clean cloth work well too, especially for larger areas). I used Bristol board in a vellum finish and was able to apply multiple layers of color and mineral spirits with no problem. (Regular drawing paper works too, you just might not be able to do as many color layers.)