by Henk ter Heide on Friday July 27, 2007
Series
This is the third part of a series about drawing dark colors around light colors. The series consists of:
Just grease
While I was doing yesterdays drawing I thought that it should be possible to get almost the same result without the liquid masking film.
Fireworks quick and dirty
This is the same drawing as yesterday with hair wax and and a few layers of blue color on top. Since it’s very sticky I’m using a sheet of plastic to protect my scanner.
Fireworks quick and dirty
After coloring the paper blue I used a tee spoon to scrape the blue color from the fireworks and houses.
The fireworks look quite nice but the night sky is to light.
To get rid of the wax I fixated the drawing using hair spray.
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by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday July 25, 2007
Series
This is the second part of a series of experiments to find an easy technique of drawing a dark color around light colored detail. The series consists of:
Liquid masking film
Artist who paint with acrylic paint also run into problems with painting lighter colors on top of darker colors. They solve this problem by using something called liquid masking film. A fluid that resembles white paint but when it sets you get something with a rubber feel that you can very easily remove by scratching it away.
When painting you yently paint over the film and remove it when you’re finished. When drawing you scratch pigment on the paper and could very easily remove the film before you’re done.
Draw darker with wax
Since it is so easy to accidently remove the film from the paper makes it all but useless for drawing.
To use the liquid masking film you should have some trick to get more pigment on the paper without having to press very hard.
After some drawings you find that you inadvertent left some fingers on the paper that turned into nasty colored stains. That’s because you fingers leave a fatty residue that picks up much more pigment then paper.
In this instance we can use that to our advantage.
To get more pigment on the paper without pressing I used the kind of wax women put in there hair. (It’s quite possible that butter would work just as well but it will get smelly after a few weeks).
Fireworks easy and dirty
Here I’ve drawn the fireworks. Put the liquid masking film on and painted wax on top. The film and the wax are colorless so you can’t see them. (I used a sheet of plastic to protect my scanner.)
Getting the liquid masking film on the paper was a bit of a problem. At first I tried painting it with a brush but that ruined the brush. I got some advice at my local art shop. Turns out you have to use a (pointed) blender.
(Pointed) blender
A (pointed) blender looks a bit like a bruch and has about the same size as a large brush. But where the hairs would usually go you find a rubber point.
Fireworks easy and dirty
Here I’ve used one layer of blue. To get the best result you should use two layers of blue. preferably two hues. more then one color works best when using a crosshatching technique (drawing horizontal and then vertical).
You can use the paint brush and little bit more wax to blend the color.
Fireworks easy and dirty
I used a knife to remove the masking film.
Finishing up
At this point the drawing is very greasy and it won’t dry.
To prevent my drawings from staining I always fixate them with a little hair spray. This time I needed more then a little. But the drawing isn’t fatty anymore.
Faulty
At first glance this seems like a good technique to color around details. But if you look more closely you see that there is a lot of white around the details. The problem is that it isn’t possible to paint small details with liquid masking film. Using a brush to paint with it, you hardly get any liquid on the paper an using the blender you get to much. It shapes like a droplet and flows over the edges.
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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.
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
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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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
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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