May Sketch A Day Faves

This month has been a continuation of the #makeasplash watercolour challenge and it has reminded me of how much I like working with the medium. It's just so easy to set up, especially with block palettes. And since I can be quite lazy in the preparation stages of painting it is so much more convenient than say acrylic. If I was to leave acrylic to dry on a palette it would be a nuisance to reuse which means having to measure precise amounts of paint in order not to waste too much. But with watercolour just add water and hey presto your good to go!

Unfortunately I have not as been as consistent as I would have liked and missed quite a few days this month. I'm looking on the bright side though because I'm just glad I haven't thrown in the towel all together. Since i've been using watercolour paint all month it's a much more colourful month to look back on.

It's funny to see at what points I enjoyed using particular colours. Even though I like trying out different colour schemes, I always seem to revert back to certain colours and combinations. For instance near the start of the month I favoured greens and reds but then started to use oranges and blues more as time went on. 

I was so please with how my Lizzie McGuire piece turned out. It's far from perfect but the way the light shines from the middle was almost exactly how I wanted it - without using too much white paint and letting the paper show through. Plus I'm from the Lizzie McGuire generation of Disney so this basically screams childhood to me. "Sing to me, Paolo" could be the sickest burn of all time!

The heathers painting is in my favourites due to how tricky I found it to do but I'm happy with how it turned out. I managed to push through and find a way to paint it how I pictured. Whereas the tree painting just reminds me of a 70s travel ad because of the colour palette. Definitely want to revisit some 70s colour schemes.

I painted this one during Mental Awareness week and so wanted to create something that would illustrate how my head feels sometimes. These things can be hard to explain so painting is much easier. Plus I really enjoyed using the blues and reds minimally with the white showing through. 

 

 

These last few where just fun from start to finish and I can only hope for this to continue.

Even though the #makeasplash watercolour challenge is complete I will definitely be using watercolour more. Maybe not straight away just so I can flex my other muscles but definitely soon. Next month I'm aiming to do some acrylic canvas work. Back in January I worked on some small canvases and there is something so gratifying about seeing a finished piece on canvas. 

Also my goal for next month is for quality not quantity so that means I will be spreading workload out over days instead of small finished pieces each day. My black panther painting was done over two days and I was really pleased with how it turned out so I only hope that by lengthening the process I can I achieve better results. 

May has been a colourful one and may it continue! ;)

Hazel, xoxo

Watercolour Tips and Tricks - Video Playlist

Since starting the #makeasplash watercolour challenge last month I have slowly been getting used to watercolour paints and learning how to get the best out of them. Early on I realised how different they were to the acrylics I tend to use and so I had to adapt the way I painted.

Now I could tell you that I learned all of the tips and tricks all by myself but that wouldn't be entirely true. Of course I have picked up a few things on the way through trial and error but I also helped the process along by watching some tutorial videos. I thought instead of me waffling on about what I've learned in the past couple of weeks I would put together a playlist of some of the videos I found helpful. Visually seeing how watercolour paints apply, layer and dry has been very helpful for me. Plus sometimes you need to see it rather than read it.

These first two videos have some simple beginners tricks in the form of what not to do. Some may seem obvious but sometimes you've got to hear them in order to avoid simple mistakes.

 

The next video contains the basic painting techniques you can use and experiment with in watercolour.

This video talks about your painting set up and tips to make painting easier specifically in regards to water.

And finally a video from one of my fave art channels on youtube, MaryDoodles.  In this video she goes over watercolour supplies and what you might need. However she does miss out watercolour pencils but apart from that she's pretty on point.

Hopefully this playlist is helpful to those starting out with watercolours. I found these videos to be be quite useful in getting me started. Remember cass art's #makeasplash challenge is running until the end of May so I hope to see more watercolour on my Instagram feed. If you want to see my progress just follow me on any of my social media links (links in the sidebar).

Hazel, xoxo

April Sketch A Day Faves

April has been both good and bad regarding my sketch a day progress. Unfortunately I've missed quite a few days this month for various reasons. There have been a couple of days where I have taken a strong dislike to the idea of drawing. This feeling isn't new and usually stems from the feeling of being forced to do something. So I've realised on these days it's not a wise decision to force myself to draw something because usually the end result won't be anything worthy of uploading. Luckily this hasn't happened too many times and the rest of the days I haven't uploaded I physically couldn't because there weren't enough hours in the day. But most of the days I have uploaded I've felt pretty good about my progress.

I started the month off with a colouring pencil binge thanks to my new faber-castell polychromos. It really can make a difference if your materials are good. Polychromos are just so easy to use. Here are a couple of my fave pencil drawings. I began to work on my ice queen over a couple of days and really want to go back to that schedule at some point just because I really like what I managed to do and by the end of the year I want to look back and see some bigger pieces. Spreading the work out over a couple of days allows me to do bigger work.

 

In the middle of the month I went back to my first love, graphite pencils but also experimented with my promarkers. My addiction to dance moms has continued  and expanding to me watching Sia's music video Big Girls Cry featuring Maddie Ziegler and instantly loved it. Also Kimmy Schmidt came back on netflix so I had to commemorate it! 

Last month I said I wanted to do more painting since I hadn't got round to it yet. So within the last week or so I have gotten my watercolour out. One of my favourite things about watercolour is the fact it is so convenient. Unlike acrylics where you can find yourself wasting paint, watercolours can't wasted because if they dry on the palette you can just add water and they can be used again. Here are my fave watercolours. 

 

Beyonce's Lemonade is definitely a fave of the month. She is a true artist in my eyes. 

Looking back it has been a pretty good month. It's not until I look through my work for the monthly review that I can see it clearly. Next month I aim to continue with the watercolour, hopefully do some canvas work, try to miss less days and to aim for bigger pieces spread overy a number of days. Seems attainable. 

To follow my #sketchaday2016, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr are the places to be. Hope to see you there!

Hazel, xoxo

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