One afternoon a couple of weekends ago, on our way back from Point Cartwright after a walk to the point and along the beach, back up the hill past the lighthouse and down the boardwalk and then lunch in the park, we decided to take a detour and travel back via the beaches at Caloundra.
We've done this a few times, so by the time we hit Moffat Beach at Caloundra its usually afternoon tea time. We park in the car park and carry our chairs and esky over to the edge of the green nature strip that overlooks the sea. Its a great spot on a summer afternoon, usually breezy with lots of activity on the beach below.
I sat for a while gazing at the landscape to the left and then to the right of me.
Decided that it was a bit too hazy to the left and settled down to draw the headland to the right. I used a superfine Indian Ink Pen on 300gsm rough and then proceeded to colour in with Derwent Aquatone (reasonably expensive) and Faber-Castell (really cheap)watercolour pencils. This is my experimental piece as its the first time I've tried this medium and I wanted to see how each of these brands of pencils would perform and interact with one another.
The Aquatone pencils are solid watercolour sticks wrapped in protective paper, no real need to sharpen unless you want a point, so its just a matter of tearing the paper back. The colours are strong and vibrant, right up my alley.
The Faber-Castell pencils are also nice to work with and as far as I'm concerned just a vibrant. These pencils do need to be sharpened as the colour is contained inside wood, just like a normal pencil.
I've never painted with straight watercolour mainly because I'm one of those artists who likes to see a strong outline and vibrant colour which is why I prefer acrylics. I don't think I can achieve those requirements with just water colour although I'm sure it can be done with the correct technique and a good teacher. Such is my reason to try out Watercolour pencils with Ink.
I'm reasonably pleased with how my first attempt turned out, it took me about two hours to complete, not bad for a quick sketch and swash of colour. I do think however the sky could have been better, there appears to be too many stops and starts and so the colour doesn't follow on and blend as I think it should. It would have best been done with a broken piece of pencil used side on like chalk to give a more even finish and leaving some of the paper white to give the impression of clouds.
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