From the category archives:

Technique

An easy artsy way of drawing fireworks (Sketch: Fireworks)

by Henk ter Heide on Monday July 23, 2007

Light color on top of dark color

Ever since I started drawing with color pencils I found one annoying problem. It isn’t possible to draw with a lighter color on top of a darker color. That’s a problem because there’re a lot of situations where you would want to do so. White clouds reflecting on dark water or pink flowers in a green tree to name a few examples.

An alternative to drawing lighter colors on top of darker colors could be to first draw the light color and then draw the darker color around them. But that wouldn’t be a very easy way of drawing and prone to accidents.

Experimenting

Thinking about easy ways to draw fireworks I realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to do a little experimenting to find an easy technique to color around a light color using a darker color.
This post is the first post of a mini series. The series will consist of four parts.

An easy artsy way of drawing fireworks
An easy and dirty way of drawing fireworks
A quick and dirty way of drawing fireworks
The easy and greasy way of drawing stars.
(You might also be interested in my easy technique to draw fireworks with crayons)

Cheating

The first technique is something of a cheat.
The easiest way to draw light colors on top of a dark blue color is simply to buy a piece of dark blue paper and draw something on it.

Fireworks easy artsy

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Although this is very easy method it not very practical. In most situation you won’t be able to use blue paper. In the next part I try something that, hopefully, works a little better.

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Does a car dream about becoming a bigger car? Wouldn’t it be nice to shine the light of your flashlight around a corner? On 98pages you find these kind of visual jokes.

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An easy method to draw fireworks (Sketch: Fireworks)

by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday July 18, 2007

After reading about the 4th of July a few weeks ago I thought that it would be nice if there was some easy method to draw fireworks.

After thinking about it for a while I came up with a few methods. One very easy method use crayons.

When you’re finished with this drawing you’ll end up with something looking like this:

Fireworks

Paper

Using the kind of paper you use to make business card, you start out with drawing a template to help you find important features of your drawing:

Fireworks template

Template

It doesn’t matter if you make any mistakes while drawing this template because all the lines will be covered.

The crossing lines at 1, 2 and 3 will become the center of spreading fireworks.
Between line 4 and 5 I’ll color some brown crayon to draw the rooftops.
Line 6 shows were I’ll color some green that will become plants when the drawing is finished.

After drawing your template you use the crayon to color the template:
(My crayon box came with only five colors but you can use as many colors as you like.)

Firework 1th color layer

The pencil lines will help you decide where the different colors must come.

The cover up

Now you cover the whole drawing with black crayon. Take care that the outer edge stays visible.

Fireworks 2th color layer

Getting artsy

As you can see all the lines and colors are completely covered.
With the help of the lines in the edge you still know where the center of the fireworks are and where the rooftops and plants will have to go.
My crayon box came with a scraper. But if you’ve lost it you can also use an old teespoon to scrape the black crayon off.

Fireworks almost there

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There you are

This would be a nice picture if it wasn’t for the lines at the edge.

To finish the drawing I covered the edges with strips of red paper and ended up with this:

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Justine Ashbee draws strange wall paintings that remind me of creased cloth and in that has something very familiar.

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How to get these colors flowing (drawing: Pilar of community)

by Henk ter Heide on Sunday July 8, 2007

For this drawing I wanted my colors to smoothly flow from yellow to almost red and from light blue to dark blue almost black.

I first tried blending the colors with a piece of toilet paper and got this sketch.

Pillar of community 1st sketch

You can’t see it very well in the scan but there is a light yellow orange haze on top of the pillar. Using a piece of toilet paper works fine when you want to mix a few colors but it didn’t work for this drawing.
The problem is that the paper very quickly gets dirty. I tried first blending the lighter parts and then moving on to the darker parts but I still got toilet paper with to much pigment on it which was transferred to the drawing.

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I did a little research on the Internet and found that there are several blending techniques.
One technique I found myself a few weeks ago. I used it in Blending colors (Art: Sunset 1 sketch). It is possible to use a light colored pencil to blend a darker pigment. A light green or yellow on top of a darker green (or blue) works very nice. While researching I found that this technique is called burnishing. Apparently it works especially nice if you use a colorless blending pencil.
It took me a while before I realized that they meant the white pencil in my pencil box. If you have it, you can also use a blank crayon.
I came across a website where someone talked about using some kind of metal for blending colors. And one website advised using different grains of paper.

I didn’t have any crayons so I had to go to my local art show to buy some. The art shop didn’t have any crayons and advised to go to a toys shop. They did have crayons in lots of colors except blank.
What the art shop did have was something called a “blender”. That’s kind of a brush only where the hairy bit usually goes sits a rubber tip. Apparently it’s specifically made for blending.

For the next test I used medium grain 175 grams paper and soft grain 180 grams paper.
I tried all three techniques at ones.
Starting with the blender which work a little better then toilet paper. Although it did get pigment transferred, you can control it better then with the toilet paper.
Then I tried a metal (spoon). I can’t say that the spoon really did something. I had the feeling that the metal made the drawing a little glassy but I’m not sure.
Pressing hard on the white pencil, starting at the yellow end and working to the darker end did have a very definite result. Not only did it give the drawing a glassy feel but it also gave the colors to flowing feeling I was looking for.

After trying the technique with the yellow orange part I decided that I liked the one on soft grain the best. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the grain or with the way I used the different techniques.

Pillar of community

Hack

When you’re working on more complicate drawings, like this one, you often find that you need to try a color or a new technique. You could take a sheet of drawing paper but usually that would be a waste since you only need a corner.
I’ve solved this by cutting a sheet of (A4) drawing paper in 8 pieces. This way every time I want to try something I can use a little piece of paper.
Being able to experiment is especially useful when you’re doing a drawing with a lot of varying colors like my sketch Cliffside that I will be posting in a few days.

Link

Jason Chan is trying to marry his western art education with his love for eastern art. On his site he has extensive gallery of his work

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Crayons (drawing: Devide)

by Henk ter Heide on Sunday July 1, 2007

This idea of drawing a color fountain is proving harder than I expected.

When I made the first drawing using an eraser I felt the technique was reminiscence of a technique I used for a drawing years ago. It seemed like a good idea to try to replicate that technique using pencils and a eraser. The problem is that I didn’t use pencil and an eraser on that earlier drawing. I used crayons and it is becoming very clear that it is impossible to use the technique with pencil.

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Although I won’t be using this technique here, it is a very easy way to make nice looking drawings. I’ll describe the technique:

Using (wax) crayons you make colored patches like I did in this drawing. Or if you like you can make more rounded shapes or triangular. There’re loads of possibilities.
Most important is that you cover the sheet. Don’t have any white shining through. Nice bright colors probably work better than darker colors but you can experiment.
Then you take your black crayon and cover the whole sheet. Cover all the colors you just put on the paper. You’re finished with the black crayon when none of the colors are shining through.
Next you take some sharp implement and scrape the black of the paper. Not all of it but in the shape of a…. Use your imagination. You can keep it simple and scrape the shape of a house or more complicated and scrape the shape of a flower.
The possibilities are endless.

As a last attempt at drawing the color fountain I drew this.

Devide

After I made this drawing I felt it didn’t look like a color fountain but like a “devide”.

My dictionary doesn’t know what a devide is neither does Google but I’m still sure that it’s the right word. And since I’m the artist…

Hack

In general but especially when you’re doing a drawing like I describe here, I would recommend using thick paper. When using printer paper to make this drawing you’ll find that it crumples very easily especially when you’re working the edges.
Paper that’s about twice as thick works a lot easier.

Link

Characterdesign seems to be a kind of showroom for people who design characters to illustrate books. It’s a very long page but it has very nice artwork and is well wurth scrolling all the way down.
They not only show the artwork but they also have interviews with the designers.

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To tortillon or not to tortillon (drawing: Nova)

by Henk ter Heide on Friday June 15, 2007

A tortillon is a piece of compressed paper you can buy in the shop or can make yourselves. It’s used to pull the pigment over your sheet of paper.

I’ve used it ones to find out what I could do with it. But I was a little disappointed. I thought that it should be possible to create a nicer effect. After some experimenting I’ve found that an ordinary piece of (single sheet) toilet paper works wonders.

Nova

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If you’ve ever looked at the texture of drawing paper you’ll know that it isn’t completely flat but kind of bumpy.

When you hold your pencil almost on it’s side when you draw, you only grace the bumps. The lower parts of the paper texture stays white. When you first start with drawing you learn to see the white parts as an disadvantage but actually it isn’t.

By using a piece of kitchen or toilet paper you can spread the pigment evenly accros the paper and get a kind of glassy feel.

You’ll have to try it for yourselves to see it because it doesn’t scan that well.

For this drawing I used a second sheet of paper as a kind of painters palette and a piece of toilet paper as a brush. I colored the edge of the “palette” and used the “brush” to pull a little bit of pigment onto this sheet. Then I moved the “palette” and pulled some more pigment on this sheet.

To be fair there is one exception to the rule that blending with (toilet) paper gives nicer results then blending with a tortillon and that’s when you’re in a tight spot. A (commercial) tortillon has a pointed top which makes it ideally suited for small spaces.

A problem with tortillons is that pigment will stick to the top. If you don’t want to buy a tortillong for every color you’ll ever use you can use a blank piece of drawing paper to rub the pigment of the top.

While drawing this picture I accidentally found a new technique. I’ll try it as soon as I have the materials I need and I’ve thought of a picture to draw.

(I’ve send this drawing off to a source of inspiration.)

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Second blend (Study: Color tree second blend 1th sketch)

by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday May 30, 2007

It seems that I was wrong when I said that it wasn’t possible with pencil to put a lighter color on top of a darker color. It is possible only you have to prepare to the color you draw first.

Color tree second blend 1th sketch

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You start out with a thick line and blend it with a piece of paper (I suppose a tortillon would also work). After that you can put a lighter color on top.

Even yellow on top of blue doesn’t seem to be a big problem. I never tried it because I was convinced that it would turn green.

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Luxury and eyes (Drawing: On route to the Eye lake)

by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday May 23, 2007

After finding that there is something wrong with the colors in my drawings of faces I started experimenting with the color purple for my Purple music drawing. Very soon I discovered that to get the effect I want, I’ll have to start with a very light shade of purple even pink. Which means that I have to start with a very clean sheet of paper.

You get better results with drawing if you use the right kind of base. You want something soft that will yield to pressure. That way if you draw a sharp line your point won’t break. You can use some kind of mat. But that has the drawback that it will get dirty and cleaning a mat usually leaves little threats and some dust.

On route to the Eye lake

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I use a sheet of paper of 200 gram(/m2) that’s about three times the size of the paper I’m drawing on and a paint brush to clean off pieces of pencil grinding.

While drawing the edges of the paper it often happens that you’ll also draw on the base. Or it can happen that you pull color from the base to your drawing. With a drawing like this one that gets very dark on the edges, that doesn’t matter that much because I know it won’t be visible in the end product. But with a drawing that has very light parts like Purple music it will. So I had to stop with the drawing to first buy a new clean sheet of paper for my base.

Only after I had bought it, it dawned on me that I shouldn’t have wait. I’m in the very luxuries position where there are three pictures I want to draw plus the ongoing faces project. I’ve never had that.

Up till now if I had a picture that would take a few days to draw it would be a few days before my next entry in this blog. But from now on I can (hopefully) work on several projects at ones and post more frequent.

That also means that I can write the story that goes with every drawing before I start making the drawing. Up till now I first made the drawing and had to constant distraction of words tumbling through my mind. Now I’ll just write them all at ones and save them.

I’ve have a lot of eyes in my mind. Even the last few years when I got really tired from trying to be like other people and running into one problem after an other, never knowing that I was autistic. I kept seeing eyes in my mind.

Often before I went to sleep, when I closed my eyes there would be a pair of eyes in my mind looking at me.

I often wondered what they meant. If they meant anything at all.

One of the reasons I want to draw faces is because eyes are part of faces.

But now I’m discovering that I’ll probably won’t be able to draw faces (or at least not in the regular way) I have to think of different ways to explore the eyes in my mind.

One way is to enlarge the picture and look at what else it could be.

It could be a lake.

People in love often tell each other that they are drowning in each others eyes. I’ve only ones been in love over twenty years ago so I don’t really know about drowning in some ones eyes.

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Blending colors (Sketch: Sunset 1th sketch)

by Henk ter Heide on Friday May 18, 2007

This was supposed to be “Color tree 5th sketch” because it’s a follow up on something I tried yesterday.

Holding the pencil the way I described yesterday gives much more color but you lose control. Which is fine because it gives the drawing a feel like anything can happen. But it also means that the color doesn’t cover to whole sheet. There is a lot of white visible within the tree. So this time I thought I’d combine the regular way of drawing to cover the sheet with the new way to get the new feel.

Then I came to the background. Yesterday I used one color green for the grass and one color blue for the sky. Which isn’t very interesting to watch.

Today I thought I’d add molehill (which didn’t work very well) and I’d add some more colors and since it’s only the background I didn’t bother with keeping the colors separate.

In doing so I discovered something new. You don’t need a tortillon or a piece of paper to blend colors. It’s also possible to use a pencil in a different color. Although you can’t see it very well in this scan the light green pencil drags the darker green over the paper. It didn’t work as well with the sky. Maybe I didn’t use the right colors.

Sunset 1th sketch

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Which means that my next drawing will be of a sunset with a green field to see how it works out.

(PS A few days ago someone send me a trackback. But being new to WordPress I only recognized it when I saw the email WordPress had send me. Sadly by that time I had deleted the trackback.)

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Different hold (Sketch: Color tree 4th sketch)

by Henk ter Heide on Thursday May 17, 2007

Usually I hold my pencil in the same way as I hold a pen. Between thumb and index finger and resting on my middle finger. That’s the way I’m used to. It’s also a nice way to sketch a picture when you’re not sure what you’re going to draw.

This time I tried something else. With the palm of my hand down I used all my fingers to hold the pencil and my index finger to push the point against the paper. That way you get much thicker lines. Much more color.

Color tree 4th sketch

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In the last picture I used two greens and one brown. In this one I used 9 greens and two browns. Which gives the picture a much nicer spectrum of colors. But I still don’t like the shape. Trees aren’t round.

Instead of using a tortillon to blend the color of the sky and of the ground I used a piece of kitchen paper. The paper picks up a part of the color and then spreads it over the paper. A bit like painting.

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Tree study (Sketch: Color tree 3th sketch)

by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday May 16, 2007

The last few day I’ve been studying trees to find out where the branches go and where the leaves go.

This morning I remembered an advice I read a few days ago on a site about drawing portraits. About the drawing of the ear the site said something like “you can get away with almost anything as long as you keep in mind what the function of the ear is”.

The function of branches is to have a place to hang the leafs and the function of the leaf is to get in the sunlight. This means that branch always grow out of the center. Except when there is an other branch that is blocking the sunlight only in that case a branch will go left or right. Sometimes the branch blocking the sunlight is also forced to go left or right because of a higher branch blocking the sunlight so it can seem as if a branches branched for no aperant reason, but there was a reason.

Color tree 3th sketch

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In most cases you can reason which way the tree grew just by studying it.

Only when I reached this point I asked my self why I wanted to know how the branches grew since with most trees you can’t see the branches. Only the leafs. But I have to know.

Next question is how to draw the leafs? With paint you would use broad strokes of your brush to suggest leafs. With pencil you should draw every leaf.

But I can’t. I don’t have the patience.

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