Thursday, September 26, 2013

Challenge: 29 Faces (Day 11: #27)

Good day everybody!

Yesterday night I decided to try something slightly different from my usual coloring technique. I set aside my adored Copics and turned to my Prismacolors. A couple of years ago, I did a small evaluation of how Prismacolors would work for coloring faces, but they seemed way to bright for my already rather saturated palette, so I abandoned the idea of using them for more detailed or delicate projects. Instead, have been using them mainly to cover great surfaces to spare the more expensive Copics

However, since I had made this drawing kind of simple, more catoonish than usual,  I thought I could give Prismacolors another chance.
Because I have been kind of obsessed with the inking dilemma during the past few days, in this case, I limited the inks to the minimum and created the contours of the face and hair just with colors. I did not completely follow my own intention, though, as I ended up outlining the arm and hand quite too much (even if I used the grey multiliner rather than the black one)...something to watch out for, next time

I wanted her hair to be fluffy and aqua-blue, and I liked how it turned out, but I had no precise idea about how to do the rest,, so I did a couple of trials (on the right). I picked a pretty yellow-green for the wall and chose to keep her dress and balcony neutral. How does it look?

 #27: Cotton Candy

Notice that while I was using watercolor paper for the main drawing, I did my experiments on an old piece of very smooth lower quality paper from my earlier works with Copics. The colors look so different! Also the feel of the ink going on the paper is different (it does not really sink much, it seems to stay mostly on the surface: I never liked it too much).

I'll try and make another attempt today, but I'll use a different watercolor paper and hopefully I will keep my grey outlines really light.


A big hug to you all!

9 comments:

  1. It is good to try everything and especially in this challenge we have been asked to try.
    Your joice to left is very good. I like this drawing. Wonderful, soft colors, very interesting colors but beautiful.

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    1. I agree, this challenge is great and was very good for me in many different ways. I am glad you liked my final choice of colors..:)

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  2. i enjoyed seeing your trials for color, i don't really do that, might be a good idea.
    i love the color choices you used for this piece. her eye details are quite fun.

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    1. I always to try out my colors before hand, especially if I am dealing with a complex drawing that I invested a lot of time putting together. In this case, the stakes were not high, so I could probably have done without, but I sort of felt in love with the Cotton Candy lady and did not want to spoil her background...I am a very cautious person that way...;)

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  3. Your faces have been a joy to browse over and study. You have achieved quite a lot of faces in the short time you have been in the challenge......puts me to shame!!
    The end result of Cotton Candy is just as she should be light, fluffy fun and dreamy.

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    1. The trick was to keep the faces very tiny (in average): that sped up the process quite a bit for me. ;)
      I went a bit out of my comfort zone coloring her this way and it has been fun. So happy you like her, too.

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  4. Wonderful work with the Prismacolor pencils. Great colour combination and composition. I love your little experimental girls too:)

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    1. Thank you so much!
      It's actually Prismacolor markers...I do have the pencils too, a Christmas gift of a few years ago. If you can believe it, I have not tried them yet: the same year I also got Copics and they sidetracked me completely! :)

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  5. Her big blue hair is wonderful! and her expression is wonderful. I love prismacolor markers, and copics too. I use them together most of the time. It's hard to choose one over the other for me :)

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