Monday, February 6, 2012

What a difference some solvent makes!



I must admit, I haven't had a lot of success in the past using solvents with coloured pencils, and yet I know a lot of pencil artists do use it with amazing results. I often seem to get a rather blotchy result, but on the Pastelmat, I found it really easy and am quite pleased with the results so far. Obviously, I still have a fair bit of work to do on this portrait, but whereas Heartbreak took somewhere between 20 and 30 hours to complete, this one has only had about 4-5 hours work on it and is already well under way. I also found that I could layer the pencil and solvent (zest-it) without previous layers lifting away.

2 comments:

Sue Clinker said...

Beautiful already!

Zest-it certainly does speed up the process doesn't it? So long as you allow for the slight 'bleed' effect its great. I struggle with whites on pastelmat still ... they seem to sink into the paper overnight and lose vibrancy :-)

Unknown said...

I am so grateful to you Sue for suggesting the Zest-it, or I probably wouldn't have tried it, but it really does work like a treat on this surface. One of my artist friends gets her whites to stay fresh by using Gouache. :)