Test-Driving Derwent Pencils: Graphitint Review

Those kind folks at Derwent have been in touch again and sent me another parcel: a pressie of art materials play with. It came almost on my birthday too! I got all sorts of bits and bobs, some familiar, some new things to try...

They sent me another set of my all-time favourite tool: the Inktense watercolour pencils.

This 12 set is really all you need. I once went to their shop in the Lake District and bought lots of other colours to add to my kit, but have taken most of them out again, because these colours are so well chosen. 

Inktense pencils are absolutely perfect for sketching on the go. I just love the way you can combine dynamic drawing with painterly mark-making and fill the page with vibrant colour, while carrying almost no kit - just a handful of pencils and a waterbrush.

Derwent also sent me some pastels and pastel pencils, knowing how I create my picture book artwork.

The pastel pencils were the perfect thing: really lovely quality of course, richer and softer than a lot of brands, but also very timely, providing me with some new and useful colours which I have already pressed into service, working on Class One Farmyard Fun. You need the pastel pencils for all the fiddly detail which is impossible to achieve otherwise: like all those itsy bitsy outfits the children wear, and tiny animals in the background.

The Derwent pastel bars are just slightly harder than I like for my illustrations, but that will make them ideal for outdoor sketching, as soft pastels are a bit of a messy nightmare when you are out and about, so I shall save them to use for landscapes, when the weather is a bit warmer.

For the last 2 years running,  John and I have enjoyed a week's caravan holiday in the Lake District, where I have spent my time sitting on top of hills, or down by the water, sketching every day, while John goes off walking. Once my busy period is over, I'm sure we'll be off to do it again, and I shall take my new Derwent pastels with me. Can't wait.

Most exciting of all, Derwent sent me something I haven't tried before: a set of water-soluble, tinted, graphite pencils:

I tried them out on a recent sketchcrawl. It was one if my residency days, taking my volunteer group of academic newbie-sketchers out of the safety of the university, to draw in the big wide world for the first time. We didn't go far, just down the road to the Manchester Museum, the same place I took my Urban Sketchers last week.

I thought I would document the occasion by drawing them sketching, rather than focusing on the exhibits, and I used my new pencils to sketch Vanessa and Andy.

The Graphitint are similar to my Inktense pencils, because of being soluble, so I used the same technique - vigorous mark-making followed by quick, understated gestures with a waterbrush - but the Graphitint pencils were different to use in three important ways.

Firstly, the lead is softer than either Inktense or any regular watercolour pencils I have tried before, giving a thicker line which you can see really picked up the grainy surface of the watercolour paper, creating a slightly looser, more textured result:

Secondly, whereas the Inktense are extremely vibrant and explode into colour when you add the water, the Graphitint are far more understated: certainly the set I was given were slightly muted shades, which work well together to create a softer overall effect, whereas the Inktense tend to be more contrasting and zingy. 

Lastly, the Graphitint colour doesn't change when wet, it just dissolves.  Though less exciting than the Inktense, this makes them more predictable and so slightly easier to manage. It is less easy to 'overdo it' - with the Inktense pencils, if you apply too much pencil work before the water, you can quickly get into a mess. It just depends what you are after.

I think these are going to be great for life drawing, although I have not had time to go in ages. Perhaps this will give me the push I need to make some time.

In the meantime, thank you Derwent, for my gorgeous pressies. Much appreciated.

More Freebies from Derwent!

Remember when Derwent sent me some samples from their pastel ranges to try out recently? Well, I was a bit cheeky: I figured, 'don't ask, don't get'...

I've often thought that it would be nice if people who come to my SketchCrawl days, who often stick to regular pencils to sketch, could try out new art materials. But it's a costly business, buying media to try out, especially if you don't get on with them and it turns out to be wasted money. So, I asked Derwent if they would be interested in sponsoring us. 

And those lovely folk up in beautiful Cumberland said 'yes of course', and sent me another big box of tricks! There are two huge tins of pastel sticks and similarly big tins of their coloured pencils, plus two sample tins of their Inktense watercolour pencils (I've heard they are great, but never tried them before now), and even two tins of metallic coloured pencils. Good eh?

But that's not all... They also sent us a selection of sketchbooks:

Since we almost always get members of the public approaching us when we are out sketching, and they often want to join in, it will be lovely to be able to carry a spare sketchbook that they can borrow. Most of the ones Derwent have sent have serrated pages, which means people have the choice of leaving their sketch in the book for us to add to our gallery, or taking it home with them. Perfect.

Thanks Derwent!

Freebies!

My friendly postman has been at it again. Yesterday I had another unexpected package. I do like jiffy bags: you can bet your life it's not a bill (unless it's a REALLY big one!)

When I opened it, I discovered those nice folks at Derwent had sent me a little pressie. They'd noticed how keen I am on my pastels and thought I might like to try out some samples of their wares. So I did... 

It's interesting: I already have a few Derwent pastel pencils (labelled Rexel Derwent), but I'm not keen on them - they are slightly waxy, which doesn't mix well with the softer chalks. These new ones are different though: they are lovely to use, and the colour is really rich. I was especially pleased to have the pillar-box red, as it made me realise that the red pastel pencil I have been struggling with for my, oh-so-fiddly Baby Can Bounce spider is rubbish!

Got to say though, their pastel sticks are not going to be any good for my illustration work: though the tin says 'new softer texture' they are still harder than the other brands I use, like Unison and Rembrant, so they tend to scrape the softer chalk off the page. I will however try them out again on general sketching, where I think they will be perfect - really soft pastels are not even slightly portable, but these look like they'll be tougher on-the-go.

Thank you Derwent - much appreciated! 

Worldwide SketchCrawl Day at The Hepworth

This time last week I was out with my fellow sketchers, taking part in the 33rd Worldwide SketchCrawl Day.

The Sheffield SketchCrawlers decided to join forces again with our sister-group in Wakefield, organised by Helen (above), and we all spent the day together, this time drawing in the Hepworth Gallery.

It's a lovely, very modern building, not been open long and has a great collection of sculptures and paintings. They were unfortunately very picky about what materials we could use in the gallery: not only no paint or ink, but no pastels or charcoal (which I'd really fancied using for the sculptural shapes. We even had to have our tin of Derwent pencils 'passed' by the manager!

Unfortunately, there was not much time to look round properly, or there'd have been no time left for drawing. I'm going to go back though, as it's a smashing gallery.

This abstract piece really appealed, as it had so many complex but subtle curves, plains and shadows, but I haven't got it right at all:

I had another go, using some coloured pencils from our shared Derwent tin, but that wasn't really any more accurate. Hey-ho - at least being so abstract, nobody can tell!

We had a great turn-out, so Helen booked us a whole section of the gallery's cafe for lunch, where we filled several tables and rewarded our morning's endeavours with some very nice nosh:

We were once again very lucky with the weather, so instead of drawing inside the gallery all day, as we'd anticipated, we were able to venture outside in the afternoon. 

The gallery is right on a river. You have to cross a wide bridge to get to it. I wanted to stay in the sun and discovered that from up on the bridge I was able to get a good ariel view of some of the outdoor sculptures:

It was so summery, some people sat on the grass to sketch...

I tried that too, but in the end I stood up, so I could get this view over the wire fence towards the boatyard across the river. I decided to have a go with the tin of pastels which Derwent had given us, since they wouldn't let me loose with them inside the gallery. I had taken a sketchbook of tinted, lightly textured paper especially:

I spent a fair while on it, interrupted by bits of chatting and taking photos. Suddenly I realised there was just 20mins to go, so ran back inside and whizzed round, bagging a couple more:

Afterwards we did our usual sharing of the work. As at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, we had a space set-aside for us to use. The quality this time was probably the best ever. Some fabulous stuff was done and, as always, everybody had tackled it very differently, which makes it so interesting.

By the way, if you want to find out about up-coming events in our region, or see what we have produced at recent SketchCrawls, we now have our very own Facebook page, SketchCrawl North where you are very welcome to join us - we are a very friendly bunch! 

Travels in Lanzarote: Day 6. Five in One Day!

As you will have noticed, most days so far, I just did one sketch while we were out and about together, rather than go out actually sketching for the day. Day 6 was another chilly day, but it was sunnier than usual over our hill, so we hatched the plan that John would go out for a walk on his own and I would sit on the hill and sketch. I even took an A3 sketchbook with me. Serious stuff!

I took a regular spiral-bound drawing pad, rather than my posh Bockingford watercolour one, as I thought I might need to do some drawing to warm up a bit before tackling that. I was excited to have a nice long period to work.

For the first sketch, I thought I would try again with Derwent Inktense Blocks, as Derwent sent me another set at Christmas, as a pressie. I've tried them before, in the Lake District, but not really got the hang of them. On that occasion things got very muddy, as they carry so much pigment, so this time I tried to use brighter colours and not put too much colour onto the paper in any one spot. I felt the result was a bit too bright, so I dampened it down with some white conte, but I'm still not sure about it. It does look better reduced down like this though.

The gullies and terracing were hard to draw accurately, without getting fussy and over-realistic, so next I tried to be more instinctive, responding to the patterns, textures and flow lines, rather than drawing exactly what was there. I limited myself to 3 colours of Inktense block, in combination with a graphite stick, then painted the sky, for contrast.

The result had interesting elements, but I wasn't especially happy with this one either. It was at that point that a German walker came along with - wait for it - a massive, 1980's style video camera on his shoulder and asked to film me. Not great timing, though I smiled and pretended I wasn't feeling quite grumpy.

That was when I decided to allow myself some 'comfort-zone' time and got out a stick of black conte:

I then decided I needed a slight change of scene, so walked a bit further up the hill, to the view point over Playa Famara. The sweep of the cliffs down to sea level is so dramatic and unusual, I was pleased to get the chance to capture it.

Unfortunately at that point the light disappeared, on account of a massive, all-encompassing cloud. The big drawback to the beautiful area where we were staying was that the big hill above Haria regularly attracted cloud to itself, while everywhere else on the island seemed to be sunny!

Though I was still feeling quite grumpy when I stomped back down the hill, I must admit that the work looks much better now. A good lesson - always reserve judgement until another day. When you are on the spot, all you see is the things which aren't working, or which fail to express what's actually there and, when you're a bit grumpy, it's really easy to fail to see the bigger picture.

I didn't want to stop sketching yet, as it was only lunchtime, so we drove a little way north, beyond the cloud of our hill, to where there was a gorgeous volcano, 'La Corona' - The Crown, named because of the jagged edges around the rim. John went off to walk up it, while I sat at the bottom and ate my pack-up, then painted the sketch above.

The little shrubs created a wonderful dotted pattern up the sides and I loved the way the whole thing was so sculptural.

I'd just finished painting when John got back. The cloud was back, but I felt I'd done a good day's work, so we went to get a beer.

Instagram Take-Over Day

Next Wednesday, I am going to be taking over the Instagram page of Hobbycraft. I was invited to do it via someone at Derwent Pencils, who sometimes sponsor me by sending me lovely parcels of free art materials. 

I was a bit confused about what it was all about at first, but it turns out that what they want me to do is to select some of my drawings, which will then be posted to the Hobbycraft Instagram page over the course of the day. I will also be around to answer any questions posted.

I made a little film in the studio too, to introduce myself, give a quick tour round my workspace, and show some examples of what I do. Here's a sneak preview:

If anyone doesn't already follow me on Instagram, you might want to know that my personal account is here. I regularly post drawings, paintings, photographs (usually of lovely, grungy, rusty textures) and my textiles pieces too. Take a look.

Anyway, maybe I'll 'see' some of you on Wednesday. Hope you enjoy the film.

Mark-Making Exploration

John and I had a fun day in the studio recently. We both wanted to do a bit of experimental mark-making, to explore new ideas. John is looking for inspiration for his printmaking and I thought it would be interesting to play with marks and compositions which could be the starting points of new drawings or which might possible translate into textiles.

We gathered lots of tools and then made a few new ones, looking for anything which would make an unusual mark if dipped in paint:

We decided to stick to black and white, so we could concentrate on marks and tone. I mixed up a tub of black acrylic and got out some Platignum Calligraphers Black Ink too (a good non-waterproof ink, as it separates into pretty colours when wet, rather than just going grey).

I found an oil bar and some liquin too, which is great for smearing not just oil bars but also oil pastels. Plus a Derwent Inktense block and grater (tiny gratings can be scattered onto wet paper or sprayed with water for speckled effects). We both put on latex gloves and set-to on a big piece of cartridge paper each.

It was such fun - no pressure to make something which 'works', just pure experimentation. This was my first sheet:

I am particularly interested in randomness, so many of the new tools we made were designed to make the marks more hard to control. To add to the random element, we both cut up our sheets into equal pieces, using pre-decided measurements, not aesthetic judgement to create the sections:

I like the way it changes things when you isolate a section. The emphasis on the various elements changes, because of the enforced edges, and you start to get interesting things happening with composition.

On my 2nd sheet, I started with some large marks in a grey emulsion, to create a new element of contrast. I made a new tool too - a piece of corrugated card to print with. You can see the marks top right:

I cut this one into squares. As the paper's dimensions didn't divide exactly into squares, this allowed me a slight element of judgement, as I could move the composition of any square a centimetre or two to the left or right. I then selected the best 6 squares from the 9 created.

These are my favourites. It's surprising how well they work just as they are, but you can also see how they could be taken into print or textiles. It would be fun trying to find ways to reinterpret the marks and tones in the different medium.

I can highly recommend this as a very enjoyable way of exploring new techniques and getting new inspiration. The randomness is important though, as a way of forcing you not to be too controlling and letting unexpected things happen.

John did some experiments using blotting paper, which he tore into strips. Even the offcuts were interesting, which I saved as we were clearing up. The beautiful blue is the Platignum ink:

Even my offcuts were quite interesting:

Have a go. Even before we got drawing, it was good fun making the tools from odds and ends we found around the studio, taping them to bits of stick and then finding out what marks they made.

Leeds Royal Armouries Sketchcrawl

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are all having a lovely holiday. I'm afraid that I haven't sketched or illustrated anything remotely Christmassy this year, so I thought I would share some entirely non-seasonal bits and bobs instead, work I created this time last week.

That was when Urban Sketchers Yorkshire had another of our grand days out. I got up early and took the train to Leeds, where I met up with about 25 other sketchers at the Royal Armouries.

We have been before to sketch there, but there's so much to go at, you could draw in there for a year without repeating yourself. And it's all free. Fantastic. It was really quiet too, so Sunday was obviously a good choice.

Before I got a chance to get into the exhibits, I was drawn to the interesting setting. Because there is so much glass in the building, you can see out in various directions. I spent quite a while on this first sketch, which is what you see from one of the huge 4th floor windows, looking over the canal basin. When we shared our work at the end, we found that quite a few people had sketched the same thing over the day.

This enormous, armoured elephant was another favourite with everyone. I discovered that you could get up above him on a mezzanine, so I got an interesting viewpoint. It made him trickier to draw though, and his legs have turned out a bit stunted, poor thing. I used my tinted sketchbook, a Strathmore, so I could pick out the highlights on his armoured coat in chalk.

Don't tell anyone but, as with the sketch above, I sneaked a little watercolour underpainting, which is not strictly speaking allowed, but with a waterbrush, at least there is no actual water to spill. Then I worked into it with my Inktense pencils.

Here's the drawing I did of the same elephant, on the previous occasion, in 2013. Rather more stately:

I finished my day by drawing this tableau in the 'hunting' section. I hate the whole idea of hunting anything, but the way the animals were posed provided such beautiful shapes and was so interestingly lit, I decided to sketch it anyway. I sat myself on the floor, which was very hard and quite dusty. It was only as I finished that I noticed the nice comfy stool hanging on the wall beside me. Typical.

Over lunch, I did some quickie drawings of some of our team, testing out different drawing materials. This first one, of Lawrence eating his sandwich (with an uncharacteristically refined outstretched little finger) is done with a Graphik Line Painter. I've never used one before, but it was beautifully smooth to draw with: it really glided over the paper. My lovely friends at Derwent sent me a set of 5 colours as a Christmas present. How lovely is that?

Lawrence then said I should try the Zig brush-pens which he likes to use, so I drew Micheal, who I could tell was  trying hard to look natural, pretending not to be being drawn! The brush-pens were very different, but also really nice to use: you could get a beautifully fine line with the sharp tip, as well as a gorgeous chunky one.

I need to play with my new Graphik Line painters. You can apparently get lots of effects with them.

I do like the simple idea of using a coloured line with watercolour work though, and they are waterproof once dry, so would be easy to paint over. We'll see...

In the meantime, if you want to see some of the other really lovely sketches created last Sunday, go to the Urban Sketchers Yorkshire Facebook page. Plus, if you are reasonably local and fancy a day of sketching with us, join up! It's all free and we are a friendly bunch. You don't even have to know what you're doing: beginners are very welcome indeed, just bring enthusiasm and a sketchbook, and enjoy yourself.