Toothy Dog

"Bradley" Stage three. Starting color.

Until this very piece I had studiously avoided using cold press watercolor paper as a support for colored pencils. Why? Because of the large amount of “tooth” (texture) in the surface of the paper. That tooth is what makes cold press and rough watercolor papers so fabulously forgiving for painting. You can scrub them, scrape them, and, to a certain degree, abuse them, all without destroying the surface. Colored pencil pieces rarely create so much havoc for their support.

Papers used for colored pencil work are considered either fast, medium, or slow. Surfaces with little paper tooth are considered fast. Tracing paper, Vellum, Bristol plate, and frosted acetate all fall into this “fast” category. Fast surfaces are so because you can fill the paper’s tooth and create dense color rather quickly. Papers with a moderate amount of tooth like Canson and Stonehenge are commonly used in colored pencil pieces. Cold press watercolor paper has a lot of tooth and is considered slow for use as a colored pencil support. I chose it for “Bradley” for the sake of the wet medium under-painting.

As you can see in today’s update, I have begun to lay down color in the piece. At this stage the purple under- painting is still pretty evident. Hopefully, given time, the purple will blend back and the other colors will step forward. But oh there is a lot of tooth to fill here! Much more than I am used to. All the same, I suppose it’s good to get out of your comfort zone on occasion. Lead on Bradley! On to full color! :-)