More progress!

This is cute overload, I know. I got a little distracted from my purpose - going through the photo albums I came across this photo of Alex and had to draw it. The drawing at the top is of a Quokka when we visited Rottnest Island in Western Australia, 2001. I drew this one on Saturday with the Museum watercolour leads and felt that when I needed to use them to build up layers of colour, they are actually not as hard as I would like. They get blunt quite quickly and need constant sharpening and sharpening them is a bit of a messy business. Hmm. But when I woke up on Sunday morning the first thing I thought was 'Cretacolour'! The Cretacolour Aqua Monolith watercolour pencils that Bonny introduced me when we met in November. I liked them immediately but in my quest to paint, I had forgotten about them. To cut a long story short, I think, by Jove, I've cracked it! I've only got four, but I used them together with the leads on Alex's portrait and it was a huge relief - not to mention great fun.

It's funny too, that as I drew this little portrait, I was reminded of a book I saw on the last day of my watercolour class this summer. It's called Carnets d'une Longue Marche and it was a good thing I saw it on the last day because I didn't pick up a paintbrush for months after seeing it. I thought at first there were two illustrators and then I realised it was just the one but his colour pencil drawings were so much better (in my opinion) than his watercolours. So why didn't I do the obvious and try colour pencils? I don't know but now that I have it feels 'right'. I have the book now so I got it out again to see how he deals with skin tones and shadows. He keeps his colours clean and simple whereas, with the few colours I have, I've had to layer them to get the right shade and it looks a little messy. So I have ordered the complete set of Aqua Monoliths and hopefully I'll be in business very soon!