The wet weather brings me nicely on to my next project - Ducky - which I started a couple of days ago. A bit of a departure from my usual work, I am attempting a piece on black paper. I'm not at all sure at this stage that it's going to work, purely because I don't think I'll get the depth of colour I like. Other artists work looks amazing on black paper, they obviously know something I don't!
Ducky was a dear little Ringed Teal that lived with his missus next door to me. Sadly they were both killed, probably by cats, within a few weeks of each other at the end of last autumn.
Here is the first stage and you will see what I mean about the colour!
3 comments:
Aww he's looking cute as a button so far, I love that beak!
It can help if you spray the paper with workable fixative before you begin (or now if you like but it'll probably wash the colours out still further), I find that stops the colours sinking in quite as much. It can be a real pain though! I like working on card like surfaces in black paper the most because the colour sinks in the least. It seems the softer the paper, the more absorbant and the more colour it seems to steal! It can be VERY frustrating! It can also help to do a light white underpainting in pencil under your colours (although it looks like you might be doing that anyways). I also like to use my derwents on black paper because they're more opaque.
Phew, I'm a black paper freak, can you tell?!
I think it's going to be a beautiful picture!
Thanks Wendy, useful tips! I am petrified of using fixative - because of the fumes and in case it ruins the picture LOL. So I've never used it so far but I know that sooner or later I will have to. Interesting what you say about choosing card in preference to paper, I'm just using a piece of paper from a black 'fat pad' sketch book so it's obviously not ideal. I am learning all the time! I did start thinking I would use my Derwent Artists for this pic, but quickly went back to my Prismacolors, I just find the Derwents too hard. Though I'm using Derwent Studios for a blended background.
Oh derwent studio's are brilliant as well :D Definitely one of my very favourite pencils! I know what you mean about them being hard, it took me awhile to get used to them. I draw in mainly lines so derwents are good for that for sure :D
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