This was not meant to be a finished piece but I had fun making it and learned that I don’t particularly like using Arches cold press watercolor paper with colored pencil.
For the record, I love Arches watercolor papers. ALL OF THEM. With watercolor. Also with Inktense and Graphitint.
Not so much with colored pencil, as I found out doing this surreal little raven portrait.
But, this was an experiment. It wasn’t a failure, I have a great little raven that I’m quite pleased with.
I used an old sea sponge and sponged on an Inktense underpainting that was about the consistency of runny cream. I did about three layers of that. I just wanted to see what it would look like. I’ll be honest, I don’t like it, not for this. I knew it wouldn’t be like sponging acrylic, but you know – experiment – I was hoping for a bit more texture. I’ll try the dish liquid and straw next time to see what that gives me.
I transferred my sketch and did the outlining in ink, which was fine. It was the colored pencil that I fought with. Arches cold press papers are like everyone else’s rough press so now I’m nosy to see what the Arches rough press is like, maybe for oil or soft pastels, definitely Inktense and Graphitint, but probably not colored pencils.
I fought with the texture. I mean, I use sanded surfaces that are 400 grit and that’s pretty rough but the texture of this paper is a different type of rough There was a lot of time spent sharpening pencils so that I could keep them extra pointy to get into all the surface texture. In the end, I did like my raven and I got a lot of layers. I might try a colored pencil landscape – something like hard scrubby desert – because I think the texture of the paper would suit it.
Interestingly, I’m doing an elder dryad spirit on Fabriano Artistico hot press paper. It’s my first time using fine liners with colored pencils on that surface and – spoiler alert – I made the frightening discovery that on that paper, the Holbein solvent smudges the ink. It doesn’t do that on the Arches paper. The Inktense stayed put, the fine liner stayed put, and the pencil blended. There’s something different about Fabriano Artistico that’s not like my other watercolor papers. But you’ll see that when it’s ready!