drawing

♥ Drawing Lesson 5; Colored Pencils

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Hey Lovelies! Today I wanted to write the last drawing lesson of the year, since my favorite season is approaching fast now. I have so much stuff I wanna blog about so I will set this one as the last drawing lesson. I am not sure if I will pick it up next year, depends also if people wanna see more lessons/tips. Let me know down below!
Today I wanted to cover colored pencils. It’s like the next step after graphite. Just like myself, I was scared of using them when just starting out.

Faber Castell Polychromos!

Scary

Most people who start drawing, start with graphite. At a certain point you want more, experiment with other materials. Often artists choose colored pencil next, just like me. But, when I just wanted to start with colors, I got scared of using them. I mean, they look really intimidating, so many colors to choose from. Where the heck do you start?!

What to do

What I did, to overcome my fear. Just limit your amount of colors you wanna use, just to get used to draw with them. Pick basic colors, like for skin, a light color, medium and dark color. This way you can give yourself some space and not get stressed of which color to use next, just focus on shadows and highlights. Just like you would with graphite. When you get used to them you can add more colors and play around to see what works best for the subject you are drawing. It can sometimes surprise you what colors you would use in a certain subject.

Practice

Practice is the only way to get better. Just keep going and it’s okay if you mess up, because from your mistakes you can learn. Sometimes it is better to practice with colored pencils, to play around with them, in some easier shapes, draw some circles on paper and try to make them look 3D, as if they will pop off the paper.

New colored pencils

When you have a perfectly new box of pretty colored pencils, I never wanna use them haha. But that’s not where you got them for. I often try to swatch my colors on the paper I wanna use them for. This way you get an idea how the pigments grab to the paper, how hard/soft they are and how the coverage is. Specially if you wanna worked on toned or black paper, it’s important to see how opaque the are.

These are some swatches I made of Caran D’Ache Luminance 6901 Colored pencils on Strathmore toned tan.

Wax or Oil

I have no clue if I need to tell more about colored pencils, well, yeah, maybe that there are oil and wax based colored pencils. Prismacolors for example are wax based. Faber Castell Polychormos are oil based. It’s just way they make them. It is up to you what type you love, again, I have said this many times, it’s up to you what you love and what fits in your budget. But If you start out with colored pencils, don’t buy those very cheap ones you can get at any toy store. Those are usually very hard and barely pigmented. You won’t enjoy drawing with them. 

There are a lot brands out there that have good quality pencils. But whatever you are able to buy, what fits into your budget, it’s always good to start with. The more expensive doesn’t immediatly make you better or someting. It comes down to your technque!

Lightfastness

This is something that’s usually stated on the pencils in some way. When you are just starting out it’s not something that’s very important. When you start selling your work it get’s important. Why? Because you don’t wanna sell an artwork that will fade in a few years.

I am not going deep now into lightfastness, I feel like that is something for another time.

I hope this drawing lesson is a bit helpful again! Like I said, this is the last one of this year. I will see if I will be back next year with more!

Love
Danielle

♥ Drawing Lesson 4; Paper

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Hey Lovelies! It’s drawing lesson time! Today, I wanted to talk about paper. Some people say it’s not important and use printer paper. But in fact it is very important. Maybe not when you’re just starting out, but when you’re gonna start drawing more professional, you might consider using better quality paper.

Acid Free

Acid free?! Why?! I hear you thinking, but it is one of the most important things to check if you buy paper. It has to do with the life time of your paper, how long it will last. If there is Acid in your paper, it’s most likely gonna affect the paper itself, it can turn yellow over time and becomes brittle. This goes even faster when it is exposed to light and or heat.
When your paper is acid free, you or others are able to preserve it longer. This makes the risk of damage to your artwork less. And if you are a professional artist, this is one of the things you want!

Texture

There’s a lot of paper to choose from. It’s very personal to what the outcome of the final artwork will be.
Texture is also often called the tooth of the paper. It can be very smooth with almost no tooth. This will hold less layers of, for example, colored pencil. But smooth paper also gives a smooth result.
You’ve also heafy textured paper, you can feel all the bumps in there. This is usually considered that it will hold a lot of layers.
Ofcourse there are many variations in between. It all comes down to taste, what is the result of your artwork that you are aiming for? Do you like to layer a lot? Or not at all? Also, what medium works well on those papers?! It’s totally up to you, what one artist likes, doesn’t mean you have to like it as well. Often, over time, your preference change. That’s good, that means you are growing, wanna try other things.

Below some close up’s of Paper I use.

What type of paper

There are so many papers to choose from, it’s sometimes hard to make a decision. But it already helps if you know what you wanna do with the paper before buying, do you wanna use if for graphite or colored pencil, for soft pastel or mixed media, watercolors maybe. On all papers it is stated where you can use it for, this makes you range already smaller.
It’s also helpfull to check what other artists use and how their result is on that particulair paper. This gives you an idea of how the paper acts. Though, keep in mind that your technic may be different so your result might be different as well. It all comes down to testing. Often at stores you can get test sheets of the paper, so you can feel it, draw on it. See if it is something for you.

Personal

In the end, paper is a very personal preference. For example, when I just started out with pastel, I bought canson mi teintes paper, since a lot of people I followed were using that as well. It was so frustrating for me to work on that and stopped trying with pastel. Even tho I did invest in a lot of materials. After some time I came around some different paper for pastel and tried that one, but that wasn’t my thing either. After a lot of time past I got my hands on pastelmat. This was the solution to my problems, it wasn’t my technic, it was the paper. I am able to have fun with pastel now.

This shows, what works for someone else, doesn’t have to work for you. Just keep trying and not giving up. You will find what fits your style!

I hope this blog is a bit helpful, and helps you with your art journey! It’s fun, give everything a try, and ask your supplier for sample’s, you don’t always have to buy to try paper out! If you have more questions, I am always willing to help you out!

Love
Danielle

♥ Team Spark Animation

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Hey Lovelies! I have been pretty busy lately, so I wasn’t able to make something crafty for you today. I was working on a dance animation for my favorite group, Team Spark a Chinese group. They announced a Dance Cover Contest about a month ago, and because of reasons, I can’t dance. I tried to think outside the box, as I usually do and decided to draw an animation of the dance. But never realized how much work that actually is. I thought I could do the whole MV before the deadline, turned out, I could only do half of it. xD. I’ll gonna explane how I made it and show you what my end result is in this blog. So, if you feel like doing it as well one day, you know how to do it!

Team Spark Animation, Pile of Paper
The Pile of Paper that I used, with my cute panda Art Doll

Rotoscoping

First, I downloaded the Joker dance MV by Team Spark. I needed it for the technique I wanna use, called Rotoscoping. That basicly means you are gonna trace every frame of the movie/clip you wanna use. Usually this is done digitally, but there’s always going something wrong if I work digital, (I’ve some fun stories about me and electronics tho, but not now!) so better not for me. That’s why I chose to do it on paper, what’s actually more work, I’ll explane later.

Then I opened Photoshop and opened the ‘Animation’ option (You can find that under the tab window). Then I dragged and dropped the MV in there. I set the frame rate to 11FPS, normally it was 25.. gosh I can’t imagine if I had to draw 25 frames per second. I would have never finished even 30 seconds xD. I probably could have set the frame rate to 10, but yeah, not sure what I was thinking xD.

Tracing

Now everything was ready to go, I had to cut my paper from A4 to A6. I didn’t wanna use big sheets for this, just big enough to make it work. So yeah, that’s another extra step I had to take. I am used to cutting paper sheet and survived them all without getting injured haha!

From here I made sure that I positioned my paper at the same spot every time. This is very important to make it work at all. So I got the rulers out in photoshop and dragged some guides for the size of my paper, those lines need to stay there all the time, so I locked them. When that was done, it was time to start.

I taped my paper to my screen and made sure I could see though it, I made my room dark and my screen as light as possible. This way I could see the image through my paper and start tracing.

Make decisions

While tracing I was in control who I wanted to draw and who should dissapear etc. I had fun playing around with people coming in and out of screen. This way it was also faster to finish it. If I had drawn everyone on screen all the time, it would have taken me even more time. And this way you also could get a creative aspect in there.
I sometimes had to make up things as well, when it got covered by something or someone, but I guess it’s not noticeable in the video, yay!

No clue if it would work out

I wasn’t sure if it all was working out, I only could flip all pages in my hand to check a bit. But I would know for sure if I scanned/edited/animated everything together. Most of the time it was just praying it was going to work.

Scanning

After I had drawn all the frames I wanted (I wanted to go up to after the chorus, so around 1min 35sec). I realized how many papers I had to scan and edit. I had drawn 1035 individual images, my pile was huge. These all had to be scanned. I did it per 2 at the same time. To give my scanner a break as well. Those scans needed to be cutted out to the right, same size and saved as the right number of frame. I couldn’t mess up, if I did, my animation was ruined. This process took me a few days >_<.

Animating

I did this in photoshop, used the same thing as I used in the beginning, only a bit different. First is was a timeline animation, but now I was using frame animation. Every image got it’s own frame and I set the time that the frame was shown to 0,09sec. While the first frame of every sec was shown for 0,1sec.

This was pretty time consuming to do, but not as much as the other things I had to do before this. It went pretty smootly up till the moment I got to the end and photoshop refused to save my work. so I tried to render the video without it all being saved, and guess what. Photoshop crashed.
I had to redo about 300 frames, so not that much, but by that time I was pretty frustrated and running out of time. I actually wanted to have it up that day. That did not happen, it was already 9pm when photoshop crashed. I decided it was better to stop, calm down  and continue the next day.

Make the Video

So the next day I got the animating process done pretty fast, it went smoothly this time. But I knew I wasn’t done yet. I still had to add music and I wanted to film a small part where I show the pile of paper I used.

I switched to the program Magix to finish it all up. What I noticed was when I added my animation with the music, it didn’t line up. So I actually set the frame rate in my video to I believe 12,20FPS. Now it sorta lined up properly with the dance moves. I added my video of the pile of paper and some text and exported the whole thing. Now it was finally almost over. Just uploading on youtube and other social media and I got it all done before the deadline.

Here’s my animation!

I’m pretty statified with hou my video turned out!even tho it took forever to finish, over 80 hours >_<. I’m happy everything worked out. Now the waiting game starts and I am not even sure if my entry gets accepted. Let’s find out. At least I’ve shown my boys some love! That’s what counts, right?! ^^

Now I need a massage (any volunteers?! xD) and plenty of time to relax/sleep xD

Love
Danielle

♥ Drawing Lesson 3; Graphite

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Hey Lovelies! It’s time for a new drawing lesson. Today I wanted to talk about Graphite. Since there’s more to it as you think when you are just starting out. It’s one of the easiest mediums to start with, but when you get used to it, you kinda want more, and that’s where this post is about.

Background

Graphite is a very soft material that can be found in nature. But to make a pencil of it that’s usuable, they mix clay into it. To adjust the softness of the pencil, they adjust the clay/graphite ratio.

H to B

You might have seen HB stated on your pencil. This is the most common used pencil out there. This states the hardness of your pencil. HB is kinda the middle, I know there’s F as well but I have never used this one.

Besides HB theres also H’s and B’s, and often combined with a numer ranging from 1 to 9. If you find those with H, it means the higher the number, the harder the lead is. Usually those are used for sketches, since you get very light lines. I am not a big fan of them tho, to hard for me.

When you find pencils with a B on it, the higher the number, the softer the lead is. It’s easier to apply to the paper and you get darker shades, the higher the number. This is because there’s more Graphite in them. It’s great for blending.

This is an image by Koh-I-Noor

Drawing with them

To play around with all those different types of hard leads you can create a lot of depth in your drawings. I have no complete set of those. I always made sure to have a HB, B, 3B, 6B and a 9B. With this range I could archive what I wanted.

Make sure you’d buy pencils from a good brand. I often see people use those very cheap ones you can buy a a toy store or something, but those are nothing compared to the real deal. You can struggle a lot more when using cheap stuff. I won’t tell you that you need to use the most expensive ones out there! There’s also no magic in the more expensive ones that makes you a pro in no time. But with a bit a quality it can make a huge difference, you can use steadler for example, affordable, but decent quality!

You have also woodless graphite pencils and mechnical pencils. The way you can use them are not very different, it all depends on what you are comfortable with. Back in the days I only used the normal pencils to draw with, but these days I often draw completely with mechanical pencils. yeah, preference change over time xD.

Messy

Graphite can be very messy when you draw with them. I always had a lot of graphite on my hands because I rest my hand on the paper, and graphite smudges XD. To prevent that, put a piece of paper under the hand you are drawing with, your hand stays clean and your drawing won’t have smudges anymore.

Fixtative

Because of the smudging part, you can use Spray fixtative. This fixes the graphite to the paper. you can use it in between layers or only at the end, when you are finished. You drawing stays nice way longer. As for fixtative as well, make sure you use decent stuff. You don’t wanna ruin your work you spend hours on working. Try new fixtative always on a try out piece with some scribbles,this way you know what it does with your work.

I usually use thise one by Talens

I hope this information is helpfull! I’ll be back with a new lesson next month!

Love
Danielle

♥ Drawing Lesson 2; Shading

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Hey Lovelies! It’s the 2nd Thursday of the month and I decided to keep that day for our drawing lessons. I hope you are fine with that. Today I wanted to talk a bit about shading, because last time I talked how you can start drawing, as in the outlines for any subject. Shading is important to get a 3D effect in your drawing.

Shading you can do in many ways, I’ll try to cover most of them. A lot of techniques are avaible, you should just try them all and then figure out with what technique you are comfortable with and, maybe most important, what the outcome must look like. Sometimes it takes a while to get comfortable with a certain technique. Practice will pay off in the end. Don’t give up after one try. Drawing takes time to learn.

Shading
For all techniques I used a HB pencil except for bleding, there I use a 3B pencil.

Hatching

By drawing short or longer lines you can create depth. You usually draw them in one direction/parallel with this technic. The more lines you draw in one area, the dark the shade will be.

Cross hatching

Is almost the same as hatching, only here, you will draw the lines in different directions. They cross each other in many ways. The same here, more lines in one place is a darker shade.

Circular motion

You basicly draw in small cicles to create depth. By drawing in small circles you won’t have a stop and ending point of your pencil while drawing, so no extra pressure on your pencil. The pressure with circles is usually continues, this will create a smoother outcome. Add more layers to create darker areas.

Stippling/Pointlism

By adding a lot of dots to your drawing, you can also create shades. This is often done with markers. but you can do it with pencil as well, just becareful not to damage either your paper or your pencils. The more dots you add to one spot, the darker the area. This will take a lot of time to do tho, but sometimes the outcome can be very interresting. For example if you need to draw something sparkly.

Smudging/blending

Most of the times this will be used in combination of blending stumps/tissues/qtips/etc. You apply some graphite (or else) lightly to an area you wanna shade, with, for example a blending stump you blend it out for a smooth finish. Repeat until you have the darkness you want.  
(Just a side note, don’t use your fingers. On your fingers are always oils from your skin, this will affect the blending, it won’t be smooth and after some years in can affect your drawing.)

Burnishing

Usually used with colored pencil, not really with graphite. You basicly apply a lot of pressure to your pencil, this way you can get a smooth/darker result. But, there’s a but in this, you damage the tooth of your paper. When there is no tooth left, you can’t apply more layers. If you use thin paper, you can even rip it. Please be careful if you use this technique.

For me, personally, I love to use the circular motion technique. I have never been a fan of anything else. I did smudging with my fingers in the beginning, when I just started out. I just didn’t had the knowledge. Since I am a self-taught artist, I always had to learn things the hard way haha. I wouldn’t have liked to learn it another way tho. Just let me play around with the things around me and I’ll be happy.

I hope you will play around as well, remember, there’s no right or wrong in art. Whatever people will say. All ‘Rules’ are made by humans, why follow them all the time?

Have a wonderful day!

Love
Danielle