The Creative Plan – Day 5 Liquid Pencils

Macquarie Place Park

It was a morning out in the city with Urban Sketchers Sydney then I continued on into the afternoon with a few sketching friends. I wanted to use the liquid pencils at least once today so pulled out the Permanent paints and a short-haired brush.

The colours and the soft grainy tints I created are really nice, though this might be partly attributed to the dry, short-brush technique. The background washes were created with the same paints too which is quite nice.

 Again, it was hard to create fine detail or tonal variation with this paint, even when I tried to build up the tone in layers it still ended up being a solid block of dense colour. It would be great as an Impressionistic medium if it involved wanting to catch light play…maybe…

Henson Park

One thing I have liked throughout this exploration is the soft grainy texture that’s left behind when the paint is removed. I prepared two sheets in advance, loading it with rewettable paint: one had Grey and Red; the other two layers of Sepia. The next day I removed as much as I could, first with water then with an eraser.

In the last few hours of daylight I went to my local park, a football field, and drew the grandstand with some Conte á Paris pencils, courtesy of my talented sketching friend Lisa.

Liquid Pencils will continue to befuddle me. Thinking that it’s a graphite surface which should work well with other carbon or graphite materials, I chose a Conté carbon pencil that I love because of how soft and easy it is to move around the page, it can be subtle or strong depending on your pressure.

However, it was so hard to use. It felt scratchy and coarse, as though the paper had no tooth. The surface even felt slippery in some areas. I then went over it with a white Conté but barely got it to adhere.

You can see in of the close-up below all it did was leave scratches behind.Not feeling particularly buoyed by this, I wasn’t anticipating much with the sepia version. 

To my surprise it worked beautifully! The Contes’ took to the surface far more readily and naturally. I quite liked the feel and although my drawing was rushed, and not to my personal liking, it was enjoyable to use and I got decent results. 

 

After this last exercise my mind is now whirring with the possibility that the colour paints may have more flexibility in regards to layering and mixed media options than the graphite ones?

I need a lie down.

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