I knew you could do it. Yes, Art Rage is a great program - it used to be completely free but they amped it up & started charging. Like you said, $20 is really cheap for what you get.

MS Paint is MicroSoft Paint - that pixelly little software that has come on every Windows OS for as long as I can remember! To me, it's worse than a child's art software but, like I said, I've seen some amazing art done with it.

The advantages to digital painting are the ability to use layers or paint over something or erase completely & easily even if you're not using the pencil. It just takes the pressure off but, otherwise, it's much like traditional painting.

J

wow venus i think your doing fantastic so far with that digital painting. i havent even attempted to do a painting. i have been playing around with the drawing. and havent saved anything. fantastic--keep it up.
Lori

I found a photo of my cosmos from last summer & did a quick painting using both the Prismas & the Lyra pencils. Not sure if it's finished yet or not.

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J

I have been looking through all the post here .. i think this is a awsome thread ...there are so many challenge threads ( and thats a fun good thing ) but it sure is nice to have a thread where we can post and enjoy .....you have all done some beautiful work here .. I was fgoing to start listing names but my post would be so long cause as i look i make notes of what i like best from the drawings....so you have all done a great job and I will have this thread as my favorite now

These are some I have been doing .. the two that are simular to JD Hillberry .. I asked him if I could draw one and he said yes as long as i say who the artist was i used for the reference . ...the rubber duckie was done by jeanette first and I took mine and did like she did with the water drops ... mine dont hold a candle to hers but hey im learning still lol .

These are fabulous Kim, I especially like the cute little duck! I'd like to comment on all the work in this thread, but it would take forever, so will just congratulate everyone on their wonderful work. Will try to join in commenting from now on! Sylvia

J-Lynn - fantastic flowers! Just Beautiful.

Kim - great job on the pics, as usual hahahaha

Hey Venus .. congrats to getting the thread in the top bar ... thats awsome .

I think it is just perfect the way it is! Beautiful!!

Kim - Those are really good! That JD guy is amazing and you did amazingly well at recreating it.

J-Lynn ... I think the purple flowers are done perfectly .. should be in a gallery someplace for display ... just breath taking .
Thank you juni for your sweet comments .

kim wonderful work--i think you did fantastic with the duck and water drops. i havent tried that yet.
J-lynn i love the flowers too. they are really beautiful. i love the colors that you used and the dark backround. awesome work
Lori

I think everyone is doing great here. What's really so great is seeing how members have progressed over the time they've been here, especially those who are new to drawing & painting. To me, that's the awesome part! Beautiful work is everywhere here!

Thanks for the kudos on my painting - it was fun. (Lori, the reason for the black backgrounds is that it's the only paper I have that I know works well with cp. Am getting up the nerve to try ColourFix though.)

J

J-lynn your picture is simply gorgeous!!! I love it. I am debating right now if I want to sketch a picture for the draw challenge or get my colored pencils out and some black paper and a pretty flower picture too. I went to an art store last summer and purchased a hard bound black paper sketch book that I forgot all about until I saw your picture. I drew once in it. I think it was a clown fish under water picture that is still unfinished. Going to look now thanks for the inspiration my dear.

Ok this is a stupid art question ... but you can use colored pencil on black paper ?? and it shows up as good as J-lynns flower drawing ?

What lovely, lovely flowers J-Lynn!!! Marvellous!

Kim - thrilling stuff! well done!

Kim,

Great work on the Hillberry Trompe L'Oeil style drawings. I love his work.

J-Lynn, this is just beautiful, the petals look so delicate and the colouring is superb! Sylvia

Hey Kim - Brenda has a drawing lesson on this its #Y-01 Golden Rosebud. I'd love to see your version of it since you are so good at colored pencils!

Me too. My husband gave me a coloured paper sketch book for Christmas and so far I have just been too scared to use it! But, as Joanie pointed out, I have on several occasions eyed Brenda's flower lesson and have really been trying to convince myself to attempt it.. maybe I will one of these days.

kim im with you--i didnt know that color pencils would show up on black paper. i am going to have to try that now too. thats too cool. i guess we should fully read the lessons. because there are animal lessons too. shame on me.
Lori

I love using the colored papers because I hate doing backgrounds a lot of the time! The only difference in using colored paper is that you have to use a really sharp pencil and lay down your lightest colors first and cover your light areas as well as possible.

Another trick I found on the internet is to thoroughly spray your paper with WORKABLE fixative & let it dry completely & that helps keep your yellows from turning greenish & other colors from being affected by the paper color, especially the black paper. Sometimes, you can even do a white pastel dust layer as a base for your light colors too.

J

This it is a product that peculiarly some people use to paint to the style watercolor, is tobacco paste that when working it with the humid brush gives to an excellent treatment of color sepia, remember in distant films cow boy when the cattle tenders chewed this product




Name, CHIMO

Since the first of the year I have been taking a charcoal drawing class. Jury is still out on this one....I am not sure if I like charcoal or not. I can't get the same level of detail that I do with a pencil. At least not yet.

One thing it has done is getting me doing more drawing from life. Put this in the gallery, more to follow..


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There is a color pencil artists named Janie Gildow. A Google search will bring up lots of pages about here. She uses a good bit of colored paper, including black, for her color pencil work. Might check her out. Awsome work.

Chris

Thank you J-lynn.. one more question .. what kind of colored paper .. surly not construction ?
Chris nice sketch

Kim - MiTientes Paper is especially good for pastel work and will accept color pencil. Watercolor paper will work if you tint it first. Most of the colored paper is rough textured not smooth like bristol though. You can buy tablets of black paper for pastel drawing that will work. You just have to experiment with different papers. If you need more layers and your paper won't take it, then spray with fixative and it will give it a little more tooth.

Kim actually black construction paper works excellent with with colored pencils. Construction paper is usually really thick and grainy to keep layers on colored pencil work. I can't remember what the thread was called but on WetCanvas there was a thread in Colored Pencil that had alot of links for inquiring about free paper samples from different companies. I think I may try it. If I can find it again I will post the link in here.

Venus and Kim - the problem with construction paper is that it is usually not acid free or lignon free. So if you are using it to practice, its okay. But if you are wanting to save your picture - it will deteriorate over time. Be careful.

Nice work, Chris! I ended up going to your gallery to see it as it's so big that it timed out trying to view it here. Know what you mean about charcoal being a "maybe" medium. It is definitely messy &, like soft pastel, feels icky on the hands.

I've never heard of this product, Adolfo! I would think that it would make the paper deteriorate very quickly since tobacco is a very acid-y plant. I can't imagine using it for art work!

Kim, Joanie is right about the MiTientes paper. Most CP artists use the smoother side of it. I think Stonehenge comes in black also, Arches has a black cover stock & I'm using a black, acid-free, vellum cover stock from Big Art that I got at Hobby Lobby that I really like. It was only $4 for a pack of 20 sheets & most of the time you can find it at least 30% off. I also heard of someone using black, acid-free photo album/scrapbook sheets. I know that MiTientes fades pretty rapidly but I don't know about the other papers. I have a pastel painting from 20-some years ago on MiTientes and while the pastel itself seems ok, you can definitely tell that the paper has faded considerably.

The main thing with any paper used for art work is that it's acid-free. If it's not, the paper will yellow (if it's white) or deteriorate very quickly and your art will be lost.

I have recently tried ColourFix paper & love it! I tried it first with some pastel pencils & it ate the pencils quickly. However, the colored pencils over the pastel made for a great combination - the cp sort of seals the pastel. You can also buy the "ground" & make your own ColourFix paper but I haven't tried that.

Oh, this was a tip from a site in the UK so I'm not sure what they were referring to exactly, but someone used "glass" sandpaper for their pastel/cp paintings. I'm assuming that's the really, really fine "finishing" sandpaper you can find in most hardware stores. The only problem with it would be that it's probably not acid free so may not hold up very well for art projects. Of course, the old masters didn't have acid-free materials & their work is still around.

And, I've not used it, but Wallis is supposed to be another paper that's lightly "sanded" & I believe comes in colors.

I suggest that you look at the various online art catalogs, art sites like Wet Canvas (CP forum) and then experiment a little to find what you like. Everyone seems to be different in their preferences.

J

Ok here is the thread from WetCanvas I was talking about with the links for the free paper samples. I guess you either have to call or send an email and request. I am gonna try it out and see where it leads me. So I will let you know how it goes. If others are interested feel free to try yourselves as well.
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=395684

thank you ...4.00$ for 20 sheets is not bad .. I have to get me some .. i showed so many people that drawing of the purple flowers on black and the richness just pours off it .
here is a little something i have been working on for a week or so on and off .

Kim very pretty!! I like it and can tell you put alot of hard work into it. I almost wish it was spring or summer to do the same thing that girl is doing, just sitting outside!!! Michigan doesn't aloow that in winter..lol.

J..thanks for the info..I sent out quite a few emails today from the Wetcanvas post so we will see how that goes..

Ok here is a clown fish I did on black paper last year shortly after I started drawing again. I used some sort of cheap colored pencils that hardly show up on the paper but you can still see it. The black paper was in a book I bought from an art store that I think is suppost to be for gluing pictures in kind of like a photo album??? Not sure. When I bought it I wanted it for drawing with colored pencils and because of the black paper. The paper itself is very thick and smooth and has enough texture for colored pencils. So it basically works perfectly. The only downfall is that it is in a spiral binder type book and would ruin if I were to try to remove a page from it. I plan on tomorrow doing my own floral picture on black paper just to try my Prisma's out on it, scanning is a pain in the butt but ohh well. Anyways, here is my contribution...

The subject of the marine bottoms and the fish clowns are very aptractivos by the colorful one, when it works with color cardboards is due to consider the colors clear to be much emphasizing the image and that it leaves on the dark color of the cardboard or fine cardboard the brightness is very important, since the work can be left dark or flat something, greetings Adolph

This is a great thread and I loved the butterflies. I could tell it was George W. Bush and just to many at this point to comment on!!! Excellent work everbody!!!

Venus,
I particullarly like your clown fish...the darkness of the piece gives the impression to me that your clown fish (Nemo...hehehe) is hiding in the shadows of the coral reef!!! Great job on this!

Laura

Thanks Laura. Like I said it was one of my first drawings I did when I started drawing again. I think I could do alot better now.

venus .. I love the fish and would love to try drawing a underwater picture but for me its so hard to capture the feeling of underwater .. nice job .

great job venus--i really like that black paper. i am going to have to get some. i know what you mean kim- though i havent really tried to do underwater but i just dont know how i would go about getting that underwater feel.
Lori

Nice one, Venus! I do like that black paper! Here's a screenshot of the paper I got. As you can see, the regular price was $3.99 but Hobby Lobby usually has a sale going or they have a coupon that you can use for regular priced items (thanks, Joanie for that tip!)

[attachmentid=2561]

J

You know I have heard alot of good things about Hobby Lobby but I don't know if Michigan has any, or if they do where they are. All of the good art stores seem to be too far away from me or in bad areas where I prefer not to go. So that leaves me Miller's thats just too dang exspensive...or Micheals which is a good store but can be over priced without a coupon as well. Plus, I am not to big on ordering from stores online. So I don't know. I will do a search and see if we have any hobby lobby's. Thanks for the info J.

Venus, I posted the pic of the paper cover so you could see the brand, weight & the usage potential. I'm sure it's available in stores like Michaels or maybe AC Moore (do you have those?) I picked it up accidentally as it doesn't say it's for cp or anything but I'm glad I did. I really like it for cp work and it's very reasonable.

Hobby Lobby doesn't really have online ordering and the Big Art company just has a home page with contact information - no way to order from them either.

But, you could probably find another brand of paper that's similar. I think this particular paper would be used mainly by scrapbookers, don't you? I think even WalMart has a nice section of scrapbooking papers that you can even buy individually. If they're acid-free (& I think they are), they might be a good alternative & a fairly cheap way to experiment.

Just some ideas for you.

J

Thank you J-lynn .. i husband knows what that is .. it was used back in the midevel time . I will have to get some soon .

Medieval times! Wow! Kim, your husband must be ancient! lol

Had my eye appointment today so stopped by WalMart just to see what they had. It wasn't as much as they used to carry but I found some paper in the scrapbooking aisle & some acid-free construction paper in the kids stationery aisle. I don't think I'd use either of these papers for more than practice although I guess they could be nicely framed if you ended up creating a masterpiece.

I was surprised that both papers held about 5 to 7 layers of both the Lyra & the Prisma pencils. I spent less than $6 for both sets of paper so it's definitely worth the investment to try them. The construction paper will probably fade over time (it has many colors in the pad) & who knows if it's really acid free. It was less than $2 for a pad of 48 sheets (9x12") - it also says it's heavy weight but it feels pretty flimsy to me.

Anyway, just letting you know that there are alternatives out there, at least for practice.

J

Excellent drawings in this thread. Now that I'm finding my way around easier I will start to add comments when I can! Sylvia

So - some three weeks ago I said I had finished a project but could not post it for the moment. The reason for that was that I had made the painting for Joanie to thank her for her lovely package bursting with goodies which she sent me when she barely even knew me - what a wonderful person!

Now she has received the drawing and has given me permission to post it.

[attachmentid=2593]

The subject of the drawing done in Prismacolor is our traditional fishing boat called the Luzzu. All the traditonal boats are painted in those colours and they all have the eye on the prow - the Eye of Osiris to ward off evil spirits.

And since today I also finished the painting I was working on I suppose I should post it as well. This one is done in Caran d'Ache water soluble coloured pencils. I only have a box of 30 of those so my palette was rather limited but I did the best I could with them... it involved a lot of layering and blending of colours to get what I really wanted.

So here is the Fruit Bowl

[attachmentid=2594]

Isn't she the sweetest? I'm so honored.

rose--fantastic-- you are doing so well, i really love the color boats and the water-- the reflection is just magnificiant. wow good going
Lori

Thank you Lori.

Joanie - the honour is all mine. Now I get to say that one of my works is in a private collection in Illinois!

Rose, what a painting!

I'm falling in love with pencils and graphite but looking at your colored paintings I'm not going to be faithful too long. There's so much life in that colors.
The boat is marvellous and the fruit is, well, it's fresh!

Have they been done with a ref pic or from life?
In any case I clap my hands.

Rose! Both of these are wonderful! I love the boats because they're so colorful & so very different from the run of the mill boat paintings. Joanie is a love & she must be thrilled to have received this painting!

Your fruit still life is just as great! Again, you have such an intuitive way with color & the light in this one is perfect.

I certainly hope there are galleries in your town or nearby - get yourself a portfolio & get those paintings out in the public!

J

I agree with everyone else Rose I think your work is beautiful

Thank you Paolo, J and Kim.

Paolo - Both the paintings are from references. The fruit bowl is my own fruit bowl which sits on my dinner table but I still had to take a picture of it.... with all the comings and goings in my house that bowl is usually in a constant state of flux.

J thanks for all your compliments but you make me blush. It's true, I did want Joanie to have something she was not likely to find anywhere else and I do like bright vivid colours... but as for exhibiting my work... hmm, I don't think so, not yet.

You may think me strange and a total pain but I honestly still don't think of myself as an artist. I draw and paint what I see, exactly how I see it without being selective or adding anything that is me. As I was saying to a friend the other day, when I can draw an apple in blue and still convince you it is an apple... then I shall call myself an artist.

I'm happy with my work yes, but is it art?