art supplies – drawing faces

Jeff

I bought some new 4 colour ballpoint pens by Life & Pieces; one is the usual blue/red/black/green but the other two have different colours to my usual Bics. I used all three for this portrait of Jeff from the Museum by Ktchy app.

They’re a bit blobby as you can probably tell – far more blobs of ink on this drawing than the Bics ever give me. They’re also more like gel pens, it’s not easy to work light strokes with them. But it was still fun to switch it up & use something different and I love the overall colour effect I got from them.

Sydney

I was recently gifted some Winsor & Newton watercolour markers. I’ve never used watercolour markers before so this portrait of Sydney was my first experiment with them. I was a long way out of my comfort zone but it was fun to play around with the colour and see what the markers could do. The most interesting thing I learned was that some of the colours respond much better to the addition of water than others – it will take me a while to remember which ones!

Angie

This is Angie from the Museum by Sktchy app. I’m absolutely in love with the True Grit Chromagraph brushes I bought recently – True Grit brushes aren’t the cheapest Procreate brushes on the market but they’re worth every penny. They’re the best quality of any I’ve tried and I get excited every time they bring out a new set!

If you’re interested in having a look at their brushes you can check them out here – and this post isn’t sponsored by them in any way, I just love their brushes.

Mahan

I taught a class on using alcohol markers yesterday and pulled out a Derwent Graphik bleedproof sketchbook I’ve had on my shelf for years during the class to test some markers on. The paper seemed to work better than a lot of the other paper samples I had available in terms of not leaving any stripes when filling large spaces. Students were curious so I promised to test it further with a portrait.

I drew this portrait of Mahan in that sketchbook today. It does absorb the marker ink well, leaving no stripes, but I don’t like the chalky appearance of the markers on the paper. The paper also isn’t bleedproof as claimed. I got a reverse image on the other side of the page (you can see it below) just as I do in other sketchbooks (although it didn’t mark the next page). I wouldn’t be able to use this page for drawing.

I don’t hate the paper. I will probably use the rest of the sketchbook because I hate to see a sketchbook go unused. But I won’t be buying another.

J

I’ve lost my pencil case with my drawing ballpoint pens in it. This is a major disaster. It’s taken me several days to replace my 4 colour Bics (especially the one with turquoise & light green) and I can’t find another golden yellow ballpoint anywhere. Paperchase don’t make the one I had any more. Aargh! I don’t know what happened to my pencil case but very afraid someone (not saying who) accidentally knocked it into a bin bag when emptying the rubbish bin under my desk… So making do while I rebuild my ballpoint pen collection. Moral of the story is to treasure your precious drawing supplies and guard the hard to replace ones jealously.

This is J from the Museum by Sktchy app, drawn with the three Bic 4 colour ballpoint pens I’ve replaced.

New Paint

I am so in love with Zecchi watercolours. I found the Zecchi shop on a trip to Florence a couple of years ago, bought some of their handmade watercolours and haven’t wanted to use anything else since. So once a year or so I place a new order and stock up. The paints aren’t expensive- €4 or €5 a half-pan – but the shipping is (€15.50 to the UK from Italy by Fedex) which is why I only order occasionally and I make sure I stock up well.

But the joy of opening this little box is priceless. Especially this time because I ran out of Ultramarine Blue Light three weeks ago and Zecchi were closed for August!

And yes, this time I splurged and bought entirely unnecessary half pans of silver and gold to play with.

If you want to half a look around the wonders of the Zecchi website you will find them here – http://www.zecchi.it/ Click on the 🇬🇧 at the top to translate the site into English.