Make A Splash - Getting out the Watercolour Paints

Watercolour painting by Hazel Stewart, Age 9

Cass Art have started the Make A Splash campaign to encourage people to experiment with watercolour painting. So I've dusted off my Grandma's old watercolours hidden away in my cupboard and decided it's time to challenge myself.

Watercolour has never been a medium in which I was completely comfortable with. Since it was my Grandma's chosen medium you would think I would take to it like a duck to water. I was surrounded by it and so I would have picked up some tricks. Subconsciously maybe they're in there somewhere. As you have seen from my sketch a day I have tried watercolour pencils and sometimes achieve good results. However I've always preferred acrylics since they have a strong colour pay off or pencils for their precision.

To some it up I like to have the control. With watercolour, especially since I'm pretty much new to it, I have none of it. The water chooses to do whatever the hell it likes and nine times out ten it's not what I want it to do. But hopefully as time goes on we can reach some type of agreement both the paints and I.

I'm four days in and I'm starting to understand a couple of things. The one thing that really bugs me though is the fact that the white paint is next to useless if I'm applying acrylic techniques. I'm probably going to have to invest in masking fluid because I'm not quite grasping that if I paint over the surface of the paper it will never go back to anywhere near as light as it was before. Even if I put white paint on top. Automatic pilot is clearly sabotaging me.

My hope is that one day it will all just click into place like I've figured out the DiVinci Code and I look like Phoebe from Charmed having a premonition when it happens.  

Hazel, xoxo

Faber-Castell Polychromo Pencils - My Goldilocks pencils

Dare I say it but I think I may have found my ideal coloured pencil. I previously posted about being on the look out for pencils that where not too pricey but yet where of a good quality. And to be honest I think that it near impossible to find. You have to invest some money if you want quality. I was so close to buying Prismacolor because of its price but after reading more reviews about the constant breakage of the lead I knew it just wasn't the pencil for me.

And so this was when I stumbled upon Faber-Castell Polychromo pencils. Unlike most pencils they are oil based meaning they are great at blending but also can be layered up without the patchy and waxy consistency of pencils like coloursoft or prismacolour. The lead can be sharpened to quite a fine point which is great for detailed work and the pencil itself isn't too soft but yet you don't have to lean extra hard to get strong colour like you would for most coloured Derwent pencils.

I think Faber-Castell Polychromos may be the goldilocks pencils I was on the search for. I ended up getting a set of 36 to get a wide array of colours. Also what is great about these pencils is you can go online and buy colours separately to add to your collection unlike other brands. The tin I have doesn't contain any solid skin tones but if I want I can order them online. For now I'm just going to play about with their blending capabilities to see if I can get similar colours but it's great to have the option. Plus I think mixing colours creates more dimension instead of flat, solid skin tones.

All in all I'm a happy bunny. I will say they weren't the cheapest of the bunch which is why I opted for a medium size set otherwise I would have got the whole collection. They cost around £40 for 36 but I can justify cost since they are so good. If your anything like me when it comes to coloured pencils I would recommend buying them. Obviously everyone's preferences are different. I personally just don't like having to lean really hard to get the colour pay off I want but also want the option of layering up the colours. With these pencils it's quite easy to do.

I hear good things about other brands so maybe in the future I will try them out but for now I'm happy!

Hazel, xoxo

March Sketch a Day Faves

I'm aware some visitors may have not seen any of my daily sketches, unless you have been following either my Instagram, Facebook or Tumblr. So I thought I would start posting my favourites of the month to give an brief overview of what some may be missing out on but also just to reminisce.

This year March was the month of concerts. I had the pleasure of seeing Tori Kelly, Ellie Goulding and Adele. Unfortunately I don't have a sketch to commemorate Ellie's concert but I do for Tori and Adele. I highly recommend seeing any of these singers live. Especially Adele. She gave me goosebumps. I will say though Ellie's concert gave me serious Cora vibes (the popstar from the movie Music and Lyrics) and not in a bad way.  

  

March was also the month I became addicted to Dance Moms (or should I say unhealthily obsessed) and so dancing managed the sneak its way into my sketches. Got to love Baby Groot!!!

 

I also tried to work on my skin tones this month with some decent results. I purchased some Winsor and Newton skin tone promarkers and I think I prefer them over the Letraset promarkers. Not entirely sure of the difference in their formulation but I like the Winsor and Newton colour better. I think it might be because the colour less bold so it's easier to layer the colours up to create more dimension. I also tried out some Derwent Coloursoft pencils which I have already reviewed in a previous blog post.   

And finally here are some random faves of mine.

It's been a good month and I managed not to skip too many days and tried out some new drawing tools. My goals for next month are to start trying to paint some bigger pieces. This way I can spread my progress across a number of days instead having lots of small sketches. But I guess only time will tell if I manage it.

Hazel, xoxo

Shopping about for Coloured Pencils - Derwent Coloursoft Impressions

Recently I have been on the search for my ideal coloured pencils. Currently I'm using an old WHSmith brand and a bunch of random pencils I have gotten over the years so I thought it was about time I invested in some good quality pencils.

My first thought was to buy Prismacolour since most people online agree that they have great colour pay off while not being as expensive as other brands. Unfortunately the only place they are available is on Amazon and if I was to buy them as a complete set they would put me back around £60-£70. So as you can imagine I have been looking up more reviews to see if they are actually worth the money. Even though they are great for colouring many people have said that they can break quite easily and to be honest I don't want to buy a brand I haven't tested myself.

My next option was to buy some Derwent pencils. I currently use the graphic pencils and I'm very happy with them. Derwent do many ranges but I narrowed it down to the Artist pencils and the Coloursoft ones. I came across a small tin of coloursoft skintone pencils on Cass Art's website so went ahead and bought them to test out before I took the plunge and bought a bigger set.

My initial impression of them was how waxy they seemed which makes them good for blending, as long as you don't keep layering up the colours. I did enjoy how easy it was to apply colour to the paper and the pigment was pretty good. However the texture of the colour wasn't always ideal and I was only able to get the colours I wanted if I mixed them with my WHSmith pencils. So currently I have decided not buy a big set of the coloursoft pencils for now.

The colour pay off is good and the blending is okay as long as you don't keep layering up the colours. It can turn quite waxy and patchy in parts. Also works well with other pencils.

So I have looked into the Artist Pencils but unfortunately the majority of people who have used them say that you have to lean quite hard with them to achieve vibrant colours. However the pencils will last a long time unlike Prismacolour's easily broken led and the colours are buildable.  

So I'm back to square one. Ideally the pencils I'm looking for have good colour pay off without leaning too hard and I can layer up the colours without fear of it looking strange like the Coloursoft eventually does. If only Derwent did a range inbetween the Coloursoft and Artist pencils where they are both blendable but not too soft - a Goldilocks range. But it seems that the only other ranges they do are Inktense and pastel pencils which are not what I'm currently looking for.  

My WHSmith pencils are okay for now. And really if I was able to find a bigger set of them I would be tempted to buy them. But chances are they don't make them like they used to. If anyone has suggestions let me know. I'm still looking.

Hazel, xoxo

My Nephew's Winnie the Pooh Wall Mural





I can't believe it has almost 3 years since I painted my nephew's Winnie the Pooh wall mural. When my brother and his soon to be fiancé asked if I would do it I jumped at the chance. I always wanted to do one but I thought it would be in my own room when I eventually did do it. This way I could try it out before I committed to my own room.

I started out with a rough sketch with Calum and Kerrie giving some ideas of what they wanted and went from there. Once the paints where bought the best thing to do was to start no matter how daunting it may have seemed at the time. I started in June of 2013 doing about two full days of painting a week and finished in August, about a month shy of the baby's due date.

By the end of it all I was really proud of what I had accomplished and considering it was my first project of that scale I thought I had done pretty well! I remember thinking "how on earth am I going to go back to A4 after this!"

When backing up photos I came across a bunch of progress photos from when I was painting the wall and thought it was about time I spliced them into video slideshow.

My nephew still loves his wall. He loves the little ladybird right next to his crib and makes buzzy sounds when he sees the bees a.k.a. the three amigos. I have even been told he likes to say goodnight to all of the little creatures, such as the butterfly, before he goes to bed sometimes. So I don't think the wall will need painted for a while yet!

xoxo

Promarkers sketch attempts

I recently went into Cass Art and saw a set of 12 Letraset promarkers for under £10 and snatched them up. I have been following a lot of illustrators on Instagram who use markers and it made me curious about them so I opted for Promarkers as they are definitely the more affordable option compared to other brands, such as Copic.

Unfortunately what I had envisioned was being able to take to markers like a duck to water but as with anything a little practice is needed. The colour pay off is great but I thought I would be able to layer these to build up the colour. It wasn't quite what I had envisioned. It might be to do with the fact that they are of the Letraset brand but I'll soon find out since I've ordered some Winsor and Newton skin tone promarkers to try out.

In the meantime here are a couple of my trial and error sketches. Note to self : i'll probably need to purchase thicker paper to stop the ink bleeding.

Weepah Way For Now Experience

My closest friends know that I used to be a hardcore Aly and AJ fan back in the day and if I'm honest with myself, I still am. So when I heard that their independent movie, Weepah Way For Now, that is loosely based on their lives, was coming to the Glasgow Film Festival I jumped at the chance to see it.

My overall thoughts of the movie was that it was surprisingly hilarious but on a note more relevant to this blog, just gorgeous to look at. The director Stephen Pierce Ringer is a talented photographer and directed both Leighton Meester's Heartstrings music video and Aly and AJ's (formerly 78Violet) Hothouse music video so I knew before seeing the film that I was going to love its look.

He did not disappoint. It has a dreamy, warm glow to it that just makes me want to paint and draw every scene. So as part of my sketch a day naturally I did a sketch to mark the occasion and thought nothing much of it once I uploaded it. 

Soon after uploading AJ commented on my post complimenting the drawing and as if it couldn't have got any better uploaded the picture to her Instagram account. As you can imagine I was freaking out! It's always nice to see your work recognised especially by people you admire yourself. Chances are this probably won't happen anytime soon again so I'm just going to bask in this glory and excitement in the meantime.