Hi!! My names Venus and I will be your host for this weeks drawing challenge. I kind of forgot it was my week so please excuse the picture references. I took them in a hurry tonight before it got to dark..LOL. I hope you all enjoy them. I am pretty sure most of you know the rules for the challenges, but for those that don't you can use any media except paints. You are welcome to use any dry medium such as ink, colored pencils, graphite, and so on, just no wet mediums. Also no digital art mediums. Strickly drawings on paper. Ok, now on to the reference pictures...

1. Is a picture of my little cousin Jersey. I couldn't resist her cute cubbie little baby face!!
2. This picture is of my bestfriends new birdie Clemintine. She is a 5 month old cockatial and she sat so pretty on my finger, that I took her picture.
3. This picture is of a pond, my girlfriends dad built in his back yard. Its really pretty in later Spring when the flowers start growing around it but they haven't bloomed yet.
4. This next picture is a picture of a pretty red tulip at a neighbors house I took. I am a flower person so I wanted to add one to my challenge..lol.
5. My last picture is where one of my neighbors just started her flower bed and I love her wheel barrow flower pot she has so I added it as well. I unfortuneately do not have a green thumb at all and have to rely on others pretty flowers for my pictures because I don't have any..

Well, I hope everyone enjoys the new challenge!! Can't wait to see the pictures...

I had to try this one with my new prismacolors.

Wow, Bob. You're really getting the hang of those prismacolors. This is excellent.
I've never used them before; are they a little oily in consistency? I was just wondering how you blend them?
Do you use the same tools as graphite; Q tips etc?

Andrea

I'm just learning myself right now. But I don't think you could blend them with Q tips. I have found that you can layer them at times but I think you have to have the lighter color underneath. I found that I could erase a little but not entirely. And in the process of erasing softly there is some blending. I think you can slightly blend a darker color with a lighter color, but not much.

Kim or some of the others could tell you more about color pencils than I can right now.

bob.

Thank you Venus. The pics are all interesting though rather small. Will attempt something as soon as I'm free.

Bob, I love your drawing, how long did it take you? Elizabeth

I didn't think to time myself but I'm sure it was near three hours. She posted her's a little after eight and I posted mine at eleven and I worked fairly solid.

Bob your drawing is beautiful .
IRBaboon..Bob is right layering seems to be the way to go .. I never blend with a Q-tip or stump ...and I always start off with my highlights and I try to color the whole picture with the highlighted color because they lay better when I add the darker tones over top .

Bob...beautiful job on baby Jersey girl!! I just love them chubby checkers (her chubby cheeks..lol).

Rose, if you need them bigger let me know and I can get them to you bigger than they are, usually when they come from my digital I just resize them in the program that came with the camera for best for posting on the web and thats how I leave them because then I don't have a problem uploading them on drawspace. I too have noticed how much smaller they are than some who post, but the computer acts up if I do them any other size here on Drawspace. Now if its through email then its a long upload but doesn't mess up.

BRB
Impresif. And so fast.
I hope I will have time to do something too.
Great job.

Well, for those interested in colored pencils that do want to try blending, they have a colorless blender for prismas that has the same waxy texture as the colored pencils and I love them. They blend without messing up the pictures. I have yet to try a stump or q-tip when blending. The colorless blenders look exactly like the color pencils do and sharpens just like a pencil, but you want to use them LAST!! If you use them prematurely then its very hard to add color over them. (Thanks, Jeanette, for that advice..I learned fast..LOL)

You have posted very nice pictures, Venus

Bob, your drawing is wonderful! I can't imagine how fast you draw.. just three hours for such a fine result!

I'm not very expert in English technical words, so I would like to ask you (please don't think bad of me ): what are q-tips and stumps? From the posts I read here, I think they might be some tools or techniques to blend on drawings, aren't they?


I tried drawing the cockatial (at first I read "cocktail"! LOL), she's so cute!
Wasn't able to do the finger, so there's an unnoticeable mess of lines and shades (and some graphite stains on the sheet.. which moved on my laptop, too )
[attachmentid=4706]
PS: I hope Clementine will forgive me for this draw


Silvia

Pippilu

What a great drawing.
I want to try it too. I just hope it will turn out as good as yours.

Silvia, great job on Clemintine!! I am sure she will forgive you not drawing my finger..lol. It was kind of hard holding her with that one finger and trying to take a photo of her at the same time..LOL. She is still considered a baby so she likes to walk around and I had finally got ehr still enough to shoot it. She loves attention!! Great bird. I have known other cockatials that were not so nice and hated to be picked up. I guess it all depends on the trainers and owners.

She seems so quiet in the picture I couldn't imagine you spent a lot of time to take a picture of her

Hi,
here's my try out of the beautiful baby .

Nair

Q-Tips are "cotton swabs" used for cleaning your ears, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:White_menbo.jpg

Stumps are rolled paper tools made just for drawing. Brenda shows some in her lesson on drawing vocabulary.

Really thanks Ernest Friedman-Hill, now I see!

Ahh, Q-tips.. Used just this morning!
(In Italy we're used to call them "cotton-fioc")

I've never used Q-tips nor stumps on drawings... My high school teacher didn't want us to use them, so I've never learned to Think that using them I would only make a big mess and the results would be a dirt drawing...


Silvia

Ok here is my contribution for this challenge.

I hope you like it.
I had fun drawing it, and
I'm proud to report that I didn't use a grid this time.


[attachmentid=4714]

I did a little more work on the head and beak.

[attachmentid=4725]

Thanks for your comments.

Pippilu, you are funny. lol.

very nice Mecharver

Mecharver, very nice drawing and excellent job for not using the grid!!

Nair, great job at the baby!! I want to try her out as soon as I finish my practice lessons of the figure drawing class!!

Mecharver, very nice!!

Can I copy/paste the finger of your drawing and add to mine? (just kidding) P


Silvia

Thanks Venus

Very funny Silvia, glay you like it.

Here is the tulip I'm working on for this challenge.
Flowers are not as easy to do as I first tought.
Lot's of different shade which are not easy to do.

I'm planing to add some of the other foliage too,
but in case I mess things up I've decided to post it now.
This way at least the tulip drawing will be safe.

Let me know what you think so far.

[attachmentid=4726]

Enjoy!

I've add some leafs and rocks to the drawing.
[attachmentid=4736]

Added more [attachmentid=4749]

I've done the wheelbarrow too. The proportion are not exactly right on either.
Is it just me or the handles are upside down on this thing. I would have turn it the
other way if I would have put it together.
[attachmentid=4750]

Enjoy!

The moment I saw this I exclaimed "My Gosh He Is Good" Can you tell us which colors you used for the skin? I also have. Prisma colors but am also partly colorblind.

Mecharver, another beautiful picture!! Your just popping them out..LOL. I haven't even done one yet!! I guess I need to get on the ball..great job.

Thanks Venus

Definitely upside-down, yes.

Never have enter in one of these challenge. Here goes nothing.

PeeWee
Good job. you did a nice drawing.
Hope to see more of your work.

Thanks Mecharver. I like your drawings they are very good.

Black Ink Pen and Black Sharpie on Copy Paper


[attachmentid=4882]

Kilroy and Peewee, Hi and welcome to Drawpsace!! Excellent job to the both of you on your drawings of Clemintine! You both got a great likeness. Hope to see more work from you soon.

Ok so far I have only completed the picture of the birdie, Clemintine. I want to try to push and get Jersey's picture drawn, but I am not sure I will have enough time. If not then I will at least do one of the flower references. This one is 9 by 12, done in colored pencils.

Venus
Very nicely drawn. Great job.

KilRoy
Welcome to DrawSpace.
This is the first drawing I see from you.
You did a lovely job on Clementine.

In answer to questions on Prismacolors.
You can blend them most effectively with solvents. I use turpenoid, which has no odor and is cheap at most art supply stores.
You can dry blend but not like graphite...in order to make a smudge like with graphit you must lay down very thick layers of color....the subtle effect is lost. But using a piece of toilet paper or a q-tip where color has been applied will do wonders for smoothness.
Colored pencil is best applied with short strokes in several light layers. Make your stroke go a different direction in each layer.
For super smooth areas ( like for skin) I make a pallete on scrap paper and rub toilet paper onto it and then paint it onto my picture.
Another technique used in CP is burnishing...i is basically mushing the color into the paper after a heavy build up if color. It looks great in many cases...over done in some.
Also...Prismacolors are not oily...they are waxy...if you use DERwents you will get a drier texture.
Prismacolor water solubles are also dry and hardish, as well as verithins also made by Prismacolor.
Colored pencil is well worth the work. Good luck.

edit:
I just read the info on colorless blenders...which I use, but not like you would think. IThey are more for burnishing...which IS a kind of blending I suppose.
Burnishing is usually done near the end.
But if you do need to use more color and find the paper doesn't want to accept more, try a bit of workable fixative...that will bring back some tooth. It also is good for wax bloom...that haze over dark and intense colors.

Kelli, Welcome to Drawspace and thanks so much for the colored pencils tips!! I have read about alot of the techniques but I have yet to try anything other than the colorless blending pencil. 4 Kids and a husband and housely duties limits alot of quality drawing time!!

I also, want to thank everyone who has taken the time to participate in my challenge this week. I am not sure who will be doing this coming weeks draw challenge but cant wait to see whats instore!!