Tag Archives: faber-castell

Again, Really?

 

Color Play, WIP. 4 x 8 watercolor on paper. © 2017 Sheila Delgado

Color Play, WIP. 4 x 8 watercolor on paper. © 2017 Sheila Delgado

Busy working at my desk for a couple of hours last night. Needed an art break so I grabbed a small scrap of paper, watercolor pencils and crayons, and played with color. Pulled my watercolor box from its resting spot at the back of the desk, placed the towels in their usual work area. (They sit on top of the water cups when not in use)

Colored for a few minutes then reached for a brush and dipped it in water. Started to…

Ugghh!

Right in front of me, and dime sized, black spider runs from under the towels, around the left side, and back towards the wall. I sat frozen. Sort of surprised I did not freak out actually.

UGHHH!

(Made a little graphic for presentation.)

I gingerly started moving everything off my desk. 5 canvases, a short stack of papers to be scanned, the stack of my mini’s in progress, and a stack with Lally’s class PDF’s and some odds and ends to read. Moved the art cart away from the desk.

I tapped everything first, so if the spider was there he would get the hint to move on. Threw everything on my bed. Then, when I did not find the spider, I realized that was a bad plan. Moved everything to the bookcase next to my desk.

Searched everywhere, moved the desk away from the wall. Because you know how I feel. It isn’t over until you have bug guts on your shoe. After a few minutes and no spider, decided to retreat to the laptop, and wait him out.

I purchased Karin’s recommended bug sticky pads. And am happy to report I did not see any spiders for about five days. And what galls me is that I just cleaned and reorganized my supplies and desk. Ugghhh! So yeah, I know. It is probably my fault. I disturbed the little bugger.

Watercolor pencil chart.

Oh, and I finally made a watercolor pencil chart. I had little scraps with doodles before. Now all the colors are on one sheet, and it is laminated!

After working for about an hour, and still no spider. I figured he most likely traveled over to the bookcase. Where all the desk items were moved. Oh great.

So, with my desk empty, at 11:30 I decided I might as well scrub the desk surface. Planned on doing it after I had finished these projects, but what the heck. Spic and Span now.

Put a sticky trap on my desk. Sorry to report it is pristine this morning. There is really no where he can hide, I checked the printer, back of the computer, wires, back of the desk. under the desk. I am sure he has moved on. But still, with no corpse, How can I feel comfortable sitting at that desk????? Stupid spider.

OK, as for the art. This was really just a warm up, before my painting session that never happened. It is looking blurry here, but there are some very interesting areas where the colors come together and mix and bloom. Neo II’s and watercolor pencils.

Working on Laly’s class today. I was so excited to paint last night. We celebrated my brother’s birthday this weekend, and the painting had to wait. First layer is on and the canvas is calling!

Enjoy your day everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

Oh Joy, New Toys!

 

Hills 12-12-16. 6 x 6 in. watercolor on Arches 140 lb. cold pressed paper. © 2016 Sheila Delgado

Hills 12-12-16. 6 x 6 in. watercolor on Arches 140 lb. cold pressed paper. © 2016 Sheila Delgado

The inspiration photo for this made me realize something. After I had finished the painting. Look closely, and you will see there is a small ridge in front of the dark hills. How could I have missed that?

Looking from my studio window each day, I see fields leading to a row of trees in front of the hills. The shot below is from a slightly different angle, maybe that is why the ridge is more visible.

I thought about including the details in the distant mountains. But as you can see, my details are pure fiction. I was so entranced while painting the blue hills, I forgot to leave space for the tree line. It was in my sketch, but the indigo took over. I later added them by using acrylic.

Mingus Mountain

Mingus Mountain

Toys

While in Phoenix I made a trip to Blick and Jerry’s Artarama. Talk about artist nirvana! I looked at EVERYTHING. They are only ten minutes apart. Divine!

I fell in love with two colors from my Artist’s Loft™ Fundamentals™ Watercolor Pan Set. The colors are listed as Buff, and Red Purple. I want to replace them with higher quality paint. You can see both colors in the image below. (highlight on vase, table)

© 2015 Sheila Delgado

© 2015 Sheila Delgado

Looking online, I found the colors listed below are close to the Red Purple. Caput Mortum seems the closest.

Winsor & Newton – Quin. Magenta
Sennelier –  Caput Mortum
Da Vinci – Perylene Maroon
M. Graham – Permanent Alizarin Crimson

Online, I looked through pans, tubes, pencils. And I discovered Neocolor II Aquarelle Artists’ Crayons. Jerry’s had them in stock, so I purchased a few. OK, six. But hey, I wanted most of them, so I did pretty well in the restraint department!

Watercolor pencils and crayons.

Watercolor pencils and crayons.

I bought three Faber-Castell and three Derwent Inktense pencils as well. All of the colors are lovely. You can see on the samples below that Faber-Castell has the least pigmented colors. I thought Inktenze were concentrated, but WOW! The crayons are very highly pigmented! They go on and on and on! I love them. (The color in the middle is the Red Purple I am trying to match.)

Salmon seems to be close to the Buff color, a little deeper perhaps. Flesh would be better.  I also purchased an extra Inktense indigo pencil. Looking at my painting today, the Neocolor Indigo Blue seems slightly on the purple side to me. What do you think?

New colors

New colors

Happy Creating to you!