My friend, the fish :)

Today, I have a step-by-step for you, so you can laugh at admire my messy loose coloration style! :)

It's for the "Random Material" ATC swap, where participants received an art box with random and, let's face it, pretty crappy art supplies and had to do something with the stuff they received. This is not supposed to be an advertisement for the material I used here: it's - literally - randomly chosen stuff that's neither exceptionally great nor matching nor anything, really. Which, of course, is the challenge of this game!



When I don't know what to draw, mermaids are one of my default themes. Very fast fineliner drawing.



First layer of the coloration was done with alcohol-based markers:
Twinmarker BG1 Blue Grey
Winsor&Newton promarker brush in Almond
Ohuhu YR10 Brun
Ohuhu PB10 Turquoise Green Light
Ohuhu YR34 Yellow

I apologize to anyone who actually likes markers. This is bad and I know it. Okay, partially it's the fault of the paper - you're not supposed to use these markers on watercolor paper - but also, it's painfully obvious that I simply can't use markers. I can't even tell whether the brands I received are good or bad. They're wasted on me either way.



The next layer is with watercolor:
Arts Arch Brilliant Yellow
Arts Arch Vermilion
Apolo Arte Violeta Intenso
Daler Rowney Aquafine Transparent Turquoise
Jaxon Brilliant Green

Fortunately, at least with the watercolors, I know what I'm doing! XD This is starting to look like a perfectly normal intermediate coloration stage.

Also, I have Opinions on the colors that were in my art box. The Daler Rowney paint is great, and it's a PB16 (!), which is a pretty rare pigment and very lightfast, so that's one I'm super happy with. The Apolo Arte is a PV23, which is one of my standard pigments anyway, and the manufacturer, as far as I can tell, didn't do anything wrong with it: it's strongly pigmented and I'll definitely keep using it. Yay! The Jaxon Brilliant Green is a PG7, and wow, this is the first time I have to consider a PG7 a crushing failure: it's so weakly pigmented it's basically just greenish slime. And PG7 isn't even an expensive pigment, so, there's no excuse! The Arts Arch colors are questionable because they don't have any pigment information. Also, the yellow handles okayish, but the red is CRAP. I assume this is the super-cheap stuff. Whatever...



I also had some colored pencils in my box and tried them out!

Then a few crayons came into play:
Castle Arts Pasteltint Juniper Lime
Castle Arts Soft Touch Flesh
Stabilo aquacolor in a dark blue
Cretacolor AquaGraph White

I rarely work with pencils, so, no detail work here. Just some unification of the color areas. :) Also, I'm no expert, but these pencils are fine as far as I can tell. I especially liked the Castle Arts pencils which gave off a very rich, smooth color layer. The white AquaGraph was a bit of a disappointment, though: virtually invisible, just a barely noticeable lightening of the color below.




Then cameFlySea Acrylic Markers in white, black, yellow, red, and light green.

Unfortunately, they also don't come with pigment or lightfastness information, so I'll have to conduct my own tests - but I have to say, I'm very happy with how these markers handle. The colors are very opaque and the hard plastic tip is wonderful for detail work.



And, of course, I added some white sparkle. Every picture needs some sparkle! XD

The sparkle didn't end up as dots but rather... strings?!?... because the paint is somewhat slimy. It's super weird. Anyway, I tried to use this as an effect, so I paid attention to the direction in which the strings were going. I suppose if you want that kind of directionality, this paint is actually quite useful, but, let's face it: it's not very good white paint.



And this is a proper scan of the finished ATC. :)

Ballroom Dance

This dancing couple is all alone in a large ballroom – or, at least, if there are other people around, they are happily ignored. :)

I’m, again, using materials from my random art box for this ATC.



This time, the drawing involves an orange fineliner:
Staedtler pigment liner 0.3 in orange

I don’t know what to think about this product. I mean, it’s clearly an excellent orange fineliner – it’s waterproof, alcohol-marker-proof, and, according to the manufacturer, even lightfast – so if you ever need an orange fineliner, I can heartily recommend this one… If you ever need an orange fineliner, that is. Which is the main issue here, I suppose. XD



I used markers for the first skintone layer again:
Winsor&Newton promarker brush Almond
Ohuhu YR10 Brun

Yeah, blotchy. It’s definitely the paper’s fault, though: I wanted to know, so I tested the markers on other paper, and they worked fine. The reason I’m not using that paper here is that it doesn’t like water-based media… Mix-media is always a compromise. LOL Anyway: the markers are fine. Much better than they look here.



The main color work was done with water-based media this time:
Colorex White
Colorex Yellow
Apolo Arte watercolor Violeta Intenso
Arteza gouache Burnt Umber
Mont Marte gouache Lamp Black
Flysea acrylic marker white
Flysea acrylic marker yellow

I still like the Violeta Intenso a lot! :) And the acrylic markers are still awesome. Also, the yellow Colorex was a positive surprise: it’s actually liquid instead of slimy like the white I was complaining about yesterday. (Too bad it doesn’t have any pigment information and is likely not lightfast: otherwise, it’s a very nice, intense, transparent watercolor paint.) I was a bit disappointed by the gouache: I’m hardly an expert, but both these brands seem to be… student-grade, to put it politely. Very uneven pigmentation, and the black is more of a dark grey really. (I had to mix it with the purple to actually get a dark shade.) If I ever need super-granulating black or brown watercolors, they will do, though: they have pigment information (at least!), and they’re lightfast. Useable in a I-need-blotchy-earth-colors emergency, I guess.



Because I technically wanted to avoid blotchiness on the dancers’ skin, I used pencils:
Stabilo aquacolor in brown
Castle Arts Soft Touch Flesh

The Stabilo pencil was a pleasant surprise: after having used a somewhat weak dark blue from the same brand yesterday, the brown turned out to be intense, watersoluble without any problems, and the perfect warm shade for medium-brown skin. Yay! This one is super useful! Also, I’m happy that Castle Arts “Flesh” is transparent enough to also draw blush on dark skin without the result looking chalky. No fillers involved! These pencils are both awesome products!



I then used the Flysea acrylic pen in black to strengthen the outlines. More contrast was necessary…



…and, of course, the final picture needed more sparkle. I used both Colorex paints, white and yellow – not showing them again. XD

Anyway… In total, I used 13 materials from the art box.