eller | Entries tagged with fineliner

...aaaand the third ATC made with the help of the craft materials sent to me by Up-Quark.

I still had a large clock sticker and two metallic pens I had not used yet at all, soooo, I had to use them on this card! The materials used are:

Newly used materials:

- Clock sticker (cut up; scale of the balance and paper under the jewelry box at the bottom right)

- Dark gold gel pen (for metallic shine on the scale)

- Dark pink metallic marker (ribbons on the lady's outfit; partially painted with the brush)

- Wire (for the piece of jewelry the lady is holding)

- green tracing paper (three gemstones: in the lady's hand, at the bottom next to the jewelry box, and at the back in the display)

- dark green felt (cushion of the jewelry box)

(Plus a Faber Castell PITT brush in warm grey III and some acrylic pens abused as acrylic colors with a a paintbrush.)

By the way, I'm sure the jeweler doesn't just make jewelry: he also has tools for much rougher work out, and the scales seem a bit big for small stones... All this sparkly stuff has to be a front. The question is what the lady REALLY wants in the store! Presumably, it's not purely for, uh, fashionable purposes... XD

This fairy is again made with the help of the craft materials sent to me by Up-Quark.

Stuff I used:

- Flower nail stickers

- Felt (as the fairy's dress)

- Pressed clover

- Hexagonal nail glitter

- Wire (for the fairy's belt and jewelry)

- Green tracing paper (for fairy jewelry and butterflies)

I just couldn't resist the pressed clover and had to make a meadow scene! The nail sticker flowers were also a good fit - of course I added a lot of flowers in the same style. The coloring was mainly done with acrylic paints and acrylic pens.

The card is decidedly 3D: the fairy is cut out and glued to the background, as are the small transparent paper butterflies and the slightly larger flower on the right. And the dress is naturally a bit thicker anyway. So the wire decoration is almost no longer noticeable... XD I sealed the whole thing with acrylic spray varnish to protect it, otherwise the delicate pressed plant material wouldn't stand a chance.

Another page filled in the sketchbook from antaresnox. I'm trying to draw something fast every day. The forsythia is in front of the house... And, of course, rhododendron is everywhere.

It's kind of fascinating: rhododendron is an invasive plant, and when I was a kid, people started to plant it in their gardens deliberately "because the bugs don't eat it". This used to be true, except, oh wait, these days they do... I suppose we're seeing some evolution in progress. XD

Continuing in the little sketchbook from antaresnox.

I filled a blue double page with magnolias. Various black fineliners, Faber Castell PITT brush pen in "sky blue", white Pentel gel pen. :)

So, a few weeks ago, I received a wonderful handmade sketchbook from antaresnox, and I just (finally) got around to testing it!

Isn't it lovely? It's tiny (7x7 cm, which is a bit under 3x3'') and has colored pages in pink, yellow, green, and blue. YAY! I love drawing on colored paper!

( More pictures, including the art supplies, behind the cut! )

Here are proper scans of my first two sketches, fuchsia (on a pink page) and aconitum (on a blue page). I used fineliners (Staedtler in 0.1 and Faber castell PITT in M), markers (Faber Castell PITT pen B in sky blue, pink madder lake, and light phthalo green), and a white gel pen (Pentel).

I already adore this little book! :D

An ATC for Salamandea, who collects drawings of people playing musical instruments. Of course, I had to draw one of the things I play!

As I mentioned a few days ago, I drew ATC outlines for Atlicedrawsstuff to color... And she was super fast! (She found someone to swap the card with already, too.)

Atlice used Ohuhu markers (alcohol-based), colored pencils, and gel pen on my fineliner drawing. :) I really love the colors she chose!

This is an ATC showing one of Smellabi's characters: Emma, a light witch (in the literal sense: she makes lamps glow). It was a Christmas gift, but I'm only posting it now because I drew and sent it while not at home and didn't have the opportunity to scan it.

I used fineliners, watercolors, and a white acrylic pen.

For your amusement: a very fast, very messy sketch made during lunch break at work. I was showing someone how to draw geometric shapes.

chocolates-kl

No, I realize what this looks like, but we are not hopelessly lazy. XD (I was actually quite productive today, entirely non-artistically speaking.) We are dealing with crystals, so this was quite work-related for a lunch break activity. These are very obviously not crystals, but when it comes to "how to draw a cube" and stuff, well, these were the simplest geometric objects available.

Drawn (okay, okay, scribbled) with fineliners (two sizes) and markers (light brown, dark brown, warm grey and white) in a sketchbook with grey paper.

Also: the chocolates were excellent.

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.

ballroom-1

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

ballroom-2

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.

ballroom-3

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.

ballroom-4

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!

ballroom-5

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

Ballroom-Dance-kl

…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.

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!

fish-1

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

fish-2

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.

fish-3

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...

fish-4

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.

fish-5

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.

fish-6

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.

Mein-Freund-der-Fisch-kl

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

, pa

This is a painting I made for

makkapakka. Originally, it was supposed to be square format, so most of the motif is centered in the middle - but I don't own any square watercolor paper, so... I filled the rest of the format, too.

The size of the painting is A6 (postcard size). I used a variety of materials, here: the drawing was made with black fineliners including a broad chisel-tipped one. The coloration was done mainly with watercolors (different manufacturers), with some acrylics and acrylic pens for highlights and to correct "mistakes" (especially on the yellow pieces) where I accidentally overpainted. The white sparkle is acrylic ink.

I really like the result, and I think the next time I get postcards printed this will be one of the pictures... Because, clearly, I'm suffering from a lack of chess postcards. LOL

All the clichés of classic cyberpunk! XD

Cyberpunk cliché #1: the human in the tank. Here under critical observation of some surrounding robots.

Cyberpunk cliché #2: the pointless weapon. Here with mysterious blubber stuff, because that goes with everything, and with a direct connection to the cyborg hand.

Cyberpunk cliché #3: Program code represented as ones and zeros, for whatever reason. Here in the form of the feathers of a digital bird...

Staged classically in the style of the relevant comics of the 90s. :)