30/03: Indian Man in Pink Turban. Finished (for now)

I've lost my motivation on this one and plan to start doing something different to rekindle my enthusiasm.  

However, the rain hasn't stopped all day and the light is very poor so I decided not to start anything new today, and to just add another layer or two of colour to his skin, add more 'fluff/bobbles' to the woollen wrap and finish his white shirt.    

Thanks to my Staedtler Lumocolour pencil I was able to add more white whiskers and brighten his beard a little.    Although these pencils work on many surfaces and allow you to add white onto darker coloured pencil shades, they are very greasy/creamy and don't sharpen to a fine point so I try not to use them too often.

I'm finished with him for now.     I hope to get a little stock of 'nearly finished' work like this so I can come back to them with fresh eyes, do whatever tweaking I think is necessary, and submit them for shows/exhibitions over the next 12 months.   One down, half a dozen to go!

27/03: Indian Man with Pink Turban ... slowly, slowly

Still not really in the mood for drawing but I've had a couple of sessions ding bits on his blanket/shawl as they're not too demanding.    I didn't think I'd made much progress but comparing it with the last update here its coming along faster than I thought ...

23/03: Indian Man with Pink Turban ... A little more progress

and it is just 'a little more progress'.   I have a horribly sore throat today which is affecting my ears also.   Feeling  'yucky' and not in the mood for drawing.

I have picked this up, put it down and generally 'flitted' around a bit ... I got bored with the turban so decided to start on his colourful scarf/blanket - its a great way to use up some of my brighter coloured pencils that don't normally get used.

So, not much to show but I've found before that it isn't sensible to draw at times like this as that's when disasters can strike ..

22/03: Another Indian Character

I've decided that this year I must be more organised and get some drawings done in readiness for all the competition/exhibition deadlines which loom early in the year.      As we travel quite a lot, particularly in the Winter months, I'm fed up with having nothing suitable to submit (or having a last minute panic to get some work done) when the calls for entry are sent out.

I have photographed so many Indian characters over the last few years that it took ages to decide which one to tackle next.    I settled on this one as I liked his wrinkles, whiskers and the colourful turban and warm blanket/shawl he's wearing ... lets see if I still like him after working on those textures!

I got off to a bad start.   I found a pad of heavyweight watercolour paper which had no cover.   I guessed it might be some Fabriano Artistico which has been laying around for many years and which is now discontinued.    But having spent several hours carefully indenting the paper to keep all those whiskers white, I realised I'd wrecked the paper surface.   No matter how carefully I applied colour on the indented sections to highlight the indents the surface kept flaking off and just looked unsightly.   So first attempt went in the bin.

My last experience using coloured pencils on Pastelmat wasn't a good one.   The colours seemed to disappear into the cork surface after a couple of hours and the work became dull and lost its vibrancy.   Another artist reported the same problem and I think we came to the conclusion we may have had a rogue batch.     I decided to re-start this drawing using Pastelmat but selecting a different colour/batch and so far, so good, although I haven't got many layers down yet.

Work in Progress 1.
Polychromos pencils on Pastelmat - approx 12" x 16"

and with more colour added today, mainly to the turban but also another layer on his skintones - a long way to go yet ...