Art: Pink Pansy

[sigune]

Last Saturday I was in my favourite shop for artists' materials to buy a new diary, when I came across a set of watercolour pencils. That is, I came across lots of sets of watercolour pencils, but one was much cheaper than all the rest and I couldn't resist buying it, even though I felt slightly ashamed :D.

You may (or may not) remember that a while ago I posted a small sketch of a snooty-looking Pansy Parkinson that I declared I would turn into a finished picture sooner or later. Now, the dress she is wearing had to look light and slightly transparent; I had pink and frilly on my mind. There was no way I could achieve the desired effect with inks or even pencil - it's possible that real artists who know their media can, but unfortunately I'm not one of those. My idea was to use watercolour, and I bought a nice, good quality watercolour set a while ago, but I haven't dared to use it before taking some kind of classes. The pencils, however, are cheap enough for me to muck about with them without feeling like I am wasting good materials on amateurish enterprises ;P. So I decided to give Pansy a try with watercolour pencils - I have to confess that one of the set's irresistible charms is its pinks.

Basically I bought the set for this one picture that I have had in mind for so long -_-.

Well, that's the start, at least :-).

So here it is. People who know something about watercolour pencils will no doubt find a lot to criticise, but personally I think it could have turned out worse... I'm struggling with understanding colour, but it's a fun struggle.

Comments

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That delicacy is what I wanted, and I didn't think I could achieve it in any other way than with watercolour transparency. As I see it, watercolour pencils are just a tad less frightening than 'real' watercolour because you can use them like ordinary coloured pencils and then go over them with water and a brush to make the colours mix and look smooth and paint-like. I suppose the fact that they are pencils gives me more control than I would have had with a brush - I don't know much about painting and feel insecure with brushes. The scary thing was that I mixed the colours on the page instead of doing it beforehand like I used to with ecoline.