For quite awhile now, I’ve been using Sketchbox to get new supplies. Since, I am getting new things monthly I have decided that this year I want to try and make a new piece of art with the supplies from the box.
The February box was focused on tinted water soluble graphites;
-Derwent Graphitint Pencils in Ivy & Chestnut
-Derwent Graphitint Pans in Dark Indigo & Juniper
-Cretacolor Watercolor Graphite Set of 6 (sketchbox exclusive set containing two graphite pencils, a primary set of tinted graphite and a white aqua graph pencil)
-Spectrum Noir Colortint Cafe Au Lait watercolor pencil
-Princeton Heritage Round #6 brush
-ArtGraph Drawing Graphite Putty (not used)
I did use a fine liner pen from a precious box since I wanted to have nice thin lines for my drawing.
The hardest part thing for me this time around was trying to figure out exactly what to draw. The color palette was extremely limited and all the colors were very muted. Browns, grey, blues, green and purples isn’t much to work with, that’s for sure. I almost decided I wasn’t going to do a piece because I just kept drawing a blank.
Thankfully, my love for tattoos became my saving grace because I was able to take inspiration from neotraditional tattoos for this piece. While many do use bright colors, in floral tattoos in particular I did see several pieces that used more muted colors in the pieces and it helped immensely. Throw in a wolf skull (one of my current drawing obsessions) and I am on my way to a piece of art.
I drew up a wolf skull and added several stylized vines and added blackberries, little flowers and a peony that cradled the skull. Since the pencils are water soluble, I used them a lot like watercolor. It gave me the most variation out of the colors I had. I have to say I was pretty impressed with how the pencils essentially melted under the water. I didn’t have to fight to get the pencils to move or blend to much. I’ve had watercolor pencils in the past that don’t blend well but these worked wonderfully. I’m impressed for sure. I did do the piece on some of my Canson Artist Series Montval watercolor paper and it didn’t fight with the pencils either.
This was a fun piece to work on all in all. I’ve been struggling a bit with art block lately and this helped me push through it. This piece is going to be for sale on my website and will be available with a slim black frame.