Images

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.

Tara

I used Zecchi watercolours with some coloured pencils over the top for my portrait of Sktchy muse Tara.

Riley

Back in my Copic comfort zone I enjoyed drawing Sktchy muse Riley so much. For what I think is the first time ever I also remembered to take photos of my work in progress so I’ve added a collage photo of those below, so you can see how I build up my layers of colour as I’m drawing. I worked with Copic multiliners and markers in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook.

Lorë

A fun sketch of Lorë on my iPad Pro today. Her inspiration photo was in full colour but the pink and gold stood out for me so I decided to highlight those and leave everything else in black and white (well, grey).

Van

I love drawing on toned paper so I thought I’d try a coloured pencil drawing in a Strathmore toned paper sketchbook that I’ve been working in just occasionally for several years now. But I’m a little disappointed with the results. I had to work pretty hard to get my pencils to show up at all in this portrait of Van. I expected them to be much more vibrant on this paper. So I think I’ll be sticking with my Hannehmühle Nostalgie sketchbook. If anyone has had better results with a different toned paper sketchbook I’d be interested to know about it.

Klara

Another patterned portrait, this time with watercolour and coloured pencils. In Klara’s Sktchy photo she was posing in front of some fabulous rhododendron bushes so I took my inspiration for the floral background pattern from those flowers.

I drew this portrait in a Laloran sketchbook with a Copic multiliner, painted it with Zecchi watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Sid

Sid was Sktchy’s chosen daily inspiration photo yesterday. I’m a day late drawing him but here he is. I started out with a green and white striped background but it was nightmare – it totally drew the eye away from the portrait- so I filled in the stripes and it looks much better!

I drew this in a Moleskine sketchbook with Copic multiliners and Copic markers.

Jeandor

I’m still finding my way with coloured pencils – I’m never entirely sure whether to hatch or to colour in the way children do. For this portrait of a Sktchy muse Jeandor I decided to stick with hatching all the way.

I drew this in a Hannehmühle Nostalgie sketchbook with Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Cody

Cody is one of my favourite Sktchy muses and he’s always a pleasure to draw. I drew this on my iPad Pro with Lisa Bardot’s watercolour brushes.

Sheep

Something a little different today. A while ago I spent some time experimenting with digital block printing and I’ve recently agreed to come up with some designs for cards for a local eco project I volunteer with. So I’m refamiliarising myself with the process and plying around with colour schemes and brushes. This weekend Sktchy have a Barnyard Portrait party so I used a photo of my own of a sheep to come up with this digital block print design. It’s a little rough and ready but it was great practice for refreshing my memory and for playing around with colour schemes – I worked this design in 4 different colour schemes, but liked this simple one the best.

Drawn on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.