Art Materials - Part 1

I have found that people are curious about the supports I use for my work, in particular Drafting Film and Pastelbord. So I have decided to include a page on my website giving more information on the materials I use, but I thought I'd also do a blog post.

Although I have tried out many supports over the past few years I return to the same favourites:-

Arches Hot Press Watercolour paper or Mellotex for graphite

Polydraw Drafting Film for coloured pencil, or mixed media including acrylic

Ampersand Pastelbord for coloured pencil including Neocolor ll

Drafting Film, I use Polydraw double matt, 75 micron sheets. Polydraw is by West and is available as sheets or in rolls. It is described as a polyester drafting film with a high degree of dimensional stability.

I find its exceptionally smooth surface ideal for the detail I want to be able to produce. A sharp pencil point lasts for a long time on this surface. I can also easily airbrush acrylic backgrounds to produce a wonderful soft focus effect.

The one thing that you can't do on this surface is use a lot of layering, I've found 3 or 4 layers is about as many as I can manage.

If you make a mistake on Polydraw it is easy to correct, simply dampen the area and wipe off. I have even removed an airbrushed background, although that wasn't quite as easy.

I believe that an equivalent to Polydraw in the US and Canada is Mylar, and I know many artists use Mylar to great effect.

Here are a couple of examples of my work on drafting film. I have airbrushed all the background in the Rough Collie painting, in real life you can see how this pushes the subject forward.

In the Norwegian Forest Cat painting I have done the background entirely in coloured pencil, again a subtle effect but much more time consuming.

To be continued.....................

Demonstrating for the UK Coloured Pencil Society

I spent Thursday and Friday at the Art Materials Live Exhibition held at the NEC in Birmingham.

I was demonstrating for the UK Coloured Pencil Society (UKCPS) and it was great fun. I talked myself hoarse early on the first day, and had to revive myself with large amounts of liquid refreshment, strictly non alcoholic as I was driving. The stand had several artists demonstrating, all very talented and quite diverse in approach, so people got a good idea of just what can be done with the coloured pencil.

I had two half finished pieces there, Shred the ginger cat on ampersand pastelbord, and one on drafting film. People were amazed at the finish you could get on the pastelbord and I got some really wonderful comments, if any of you read this, thank you for making my day.

I got so many questions on how to draw eyes and how to work on drafting film that on the second day I started a new cat. I started with the eye and showed people how to work by building up the layers, and then adding the final highlight to get the glassy appearance. I also did a little of the surrounding fur. I met several architects and graphic designers who found watching me work brought back happy(ish) memories of using drafting film.

The drafting film I use is Polydraw double matt, 75 microns in weight.

Here's what I drew plus a bit more that I added yesterday.

I also had my photograph taken with my work several times, even by one of the other exhibitors.

I really enjoyed my two days, I met up with some old friends, made some new ones and saw some stunning work.

The exhibition finishes today but I can highly recommend a visit next year to stock up on your materials and see some wonderful work. I know that as long as they want me, i will be back on the UKCPS stand.

Several people asked me about workshops or if I would do a DVD on drawing animals in coloured pencil, I will look into that after Christmas.