Derwent Coloursoft

The most exciting thing that has happened to me this week was the arrival of my fist set of Derwent colour pencils. I've been doing some research on the internet, and it seems that two of the most popular brands that illustrators use are Derwent and Prismacolor. Up until the last moment I was tempted by the Prismacolor, but when reading through the Amazon feedback, Derwent won hands down, so I decided to give them a try first. And I haven't been disappointed!

I bought a set of 24... not a huge amount but enough to get started. And they're not called coloursoft for nothing: they are incredibly gentle and a little like pastels. I found the technique was somewhat different from the bog-standard pencils I have been using up until now, and at one point I almost felt as if I were sculpting clay, adding layer of colour over layer and almost molding it to suit the drawing.

The wooden casing of the pencils is round and slightly chunkier than the pencils I'm accustomed to using, and I found them very comfortable to handle. 

I had read that they need constant sharpening and that you get some blooming if you press too hard while blending colours, but as I work with very soft strokes on the whole, I haven't as yet had either of these problems. Finally the colours themselves are extremely vibrant which has both advantages and disadvantages. For me the biggest challenge was trying to use the light blue (Blue C330) for shading on a face: only the lightest of light strokes works as with too much pressure the blue threatens to take over as the main colour. 

Here are a couple of tips that regarding colour pencils that I have found useful and would like to pass on!

1) Wash hands frequently. Just reaching up to touch your face can lead to oily disaster on good sketching paper, so try to keep those fingers clean. If you're lazy like me, and getting up to wash your hands every 20 minutes is a pain, buy some PH neutral baby-wipes, and use them to wipe your fingers on occasionally. But the best advice is to try and not touch the paper at all unless necessary.

2) It's not a good idea to sketch on a flat surface as this will inevitably lead to bad posture, cricks in necks and general achy-ness. You can buy a table-easel or just use a light-weight board and prop it against the table at a 45* angle.

3) Finally make sure that the surface you work on is hard and not soft as you'll find the colour does not go on a smoothly if there's too much give behind your paper. This is because the pigment can't get into the pours of the paper, and instead just lies on the top. This is especially true if you are using soft pencils like Derwent Coloursoft!

hard surface

Do you have any advice and tips on colour pencils you'd like to share! Comments are always appreciated!

Finding Time

Oh Time, you abstract, ethereal, elusive phenomenon! Wayward brother of lovely dependable Space, whose boundaries one can both see and touch, where oh where do you go when I need you the most?!?

I mean, was there ever enough Time in my life to do all the things I want and need to do on a daily basis? Looking back at pre-Milo I honestly can't remember, but now I'm a full-time mother, part-time teacher, wanabe-illustrator, not to mention missing-in-action wife-type-thing*, crap-at-keeping-in-touch friend, and somebody's daughter/ sister**... well, this 'Time' thing is all but non-existent.

And with all the trials and pressures of modern/ adult life, it's hard to make Time to do something I really enjoy, and give 'that dream' of becoming a professional illustrator the chance it needs. Something has to give.

And so I've decided that since money, food, clothes and bills are over-rated anyway, I'm giving up a morning's private class each week in order to dedicate Time to ME and DRAWING and I am not, I repeat NOT going to fill such gloriously empty Time with:

washing the clothes and hanging them up

washing the dishes and tidying away the breakfast things

tidying away my son's toys

making the bed

doing the shopping

sweeping the floors

pre-cooking meals

We will live in a pig-sty and we will survive with a little less cash a week, because when I've finished getting my portfolio up to scratch and building a website etc, well then someone will come along, 'discover me' and love my work, and maybe maybe actually pay me for my precious Time.

And it will all be worth it in the end :)

In this morning's 'Me Time', I got a little closer to finishing a picture for a story book I have in my head.

I found to my joy that despite a year and a half of running around non-stop trying to multi-task a gazillion things all at once, I am still able to sit still and just immerse myself in pencil to paper.

And you know what? It actually felt as if for a moment, Time just stood still and let me do my thing.

*physically we're together every evening, but I don't think either of us have been mentally switched on since... well, since parenthood started!
**although they may have forgotten who I am by now

Blogging

It's time for me to once and for all combine all my current on-going (and un-going) blogs and put them all into one place so that I have less to keep up with and hopefully as a result I will actually keep this one up!

This blog will be a combination of updates and sneak-peaks of illustration projects, DIY projects, photography, musings on motherhood, arts and crafts projects for kids, and anything else that springs to mind!

I'll be updating about once a week at first, and would love any feedback, so if there's anything you want to say, leave me a shout-out at the bottom of the post!

So here's to the definitive of all blogs Nadia-ish, and to many more years of Happy Blogging to come!