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My
impression (no pun!) of how I painted is that it was a lot like driving
a car backwards: I went slow, the handling on the brush was squirrelly,
and it was easy to misjudge just how much paint I really needed to cover
a section. Water colors must be done lighter colors first and darker colors
afterwards; once a darker color covered over a light one (such as a highlight,
grrr), good luck trying to pull it up with water and paper towel. With
colored pencils I can start dark, light, medium, or even flip between
all three simultaneously. Sweet freedom, fer sure. Water colors were for
me a frantic application of selected portions of the muddled-together
color puddles on my pallette. I always wished I could have sat back in
the middle of doing something to fully contemplate just what the hell
I should do to fix the damage I'd done. Mixing colors was a hit-or-miss
thing, even with colors I'd mixed previously. The proportions or the quality
of the paint chip differed over a painting session; and a word to the
wise: colors mixed differently on different parts of my plastic pallette.
Working with black and making it look good was a b---pain in water color
and still is in pencil, though. Have I mentioned how much a tube the length of my index finger costed? Tube of paint vs. colored pencil---no contest. No testing the colors out before purchase, either. (Such pretty, bright pencil colors, too!) Since the tubes were some kind of plastic-coated metal deal, they didn't puncture too often; but paint would crust up the threads on the screw top, and the toothpaste squeezing-that-last-bit effect also applies to paints. To effectively paint with water colors, I needed these things: brushes of five sizes, a spectrum of paints, a box to contain and organize 'em, a 1/3" thick backboard, a book of water color paper, a roll of tape to hold the paper to the board, a stapler to hold the tape to the board, and a large bag to hold all of these things as well as a water dish, a pencil and eraser, and a roll of paper towels. To effectively color with pencils, I needed these things: a large sketchbook (which just fits in my backpack), a pencil and eraser, a spectrum of pre-tested colored pencils, a pen, a sharpener, and a box.
Hey, you awake?! By now I've bored even myself, so I'll just go eat a muffin. Enjoy the pics.
GOTHOS HOME | WEB | ASTROPHYSICS | PROFILE | MYTHOBIOLOGY | GUESTBOOK | CONTACT
ALL
IMAGES CONTAINED ON THIS WEBSITE ARE THE EXPRESSED PROPERTY OF THE ARTIST,
JILLIAN BORNAK, AND SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN OR USED WITHOUT HER PERMISSION.
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I
should give you some explanation for the pics on my pages, for I've gotten
many a comment on them. My chosen medium is the colored pencil for three
reasons: convenience, control, and relative inexpensiveness. I've fallen
in love with pencils for how well they suite my drawing style. What is
that, you ask? I lightly plan out the basic block figures, mess around
with the details until I've chosen which lines I like best and have cleaned
up the rejected ones, ink over and erase the pencil marks, lightly map
out how I want to color it, and press hard and fill in with pencil until
the paper is waxy. My pencil images may scan in a little roughly, but
I mess around with them in Photoshop, anyway. Actually, I've taken to
coloring completely in Photoshop because the program is so darned powerful.
That's what the images to the right are. The five stages in the creation
of 
All
I need to carry around with me is a box of my pencils and my sketchbook.
No single-picture, huge 'n' heavy easles; no messy water cups; no stiff
paint tubes; and no plastic pallette. I can start coloring a bit, stop
halfway, and come back a month later with no nasty side effects. By contrast,
when working with acrylics, oils, and water colors, I had to finish each
piece before it dried to get the color blending right (well, unless I
was aiming for some kind of special effect). After that I had to let the
damned thing dry. I have no patience for something like that; if I'm going
to sit down and be artistic, I don't want to have to stop coloring and
wait. When I used a water color pallette, I had to be careful about it
tilting after I used it and before it dried. With my pencil box and sketchbook
I just pack 'em up and go, throwing them in my backpack. My sketchbook
holds many, many pictures and has lasted two and a half years (with room
to spare); while, as a water colorist, I could only work on as many pictures
as I had backboards (and I only had one).
When
I worked with the liquid media, I was frustrated at how fickle the paint
and brushes were. Granted, I did some truly fun blending effects in seconds,
but that fun was balanced with having to flip mid-blend to another brush
(thus very quickly needing to use and then get up to refill my water dish)
or frantically assualt my paints to get more of the composite colors that
I was blending before the paint dried. Okay, pencils can't hold a candle
to water colors for smoothly blending colors; I admit that much. However,
once I sit down to color with pencils, I never have to get up for clean
water unless I wish to drink it. I don't have to work each paint chip
with water for five minutes ahead of time, either. Speeding it up didn't
help, that just ruined a brush. Ah, the brushes. Those which were damaged
so, so easily by a trip in the art bag. Put them in a box, Ah! they crushed
themselves up against the side in a vain attempt to frustrate my plans
for vases and cloth that day. Put those plastic protectors on them without
paying full attention and, Oh! the bristles bent back. Feh!
