Category Archives: coloured pencils

Colored Pencil Magazine Article!

May 31, 2016by karencomics 2 Comments

Hey, art-process fans! Want to know how I made this comic? I just got word that the article I submitted to Colored Pencil Magazine is now in the June issue, […]

Read Article →

coloured pencils, Comics, Illustration, Technique

Wolf-Girl

December 3, 2014by karencomics 8 Comments

Here’s the painting I’m showing for the annual members’ show at my studio/gallery cooperative, Xchanges. I don’t want to part with it, so I’ve listed it as NFS (not for sale), […]

Read Article →

Book Covers, coloured pencils, Illustration

Calico Cat

September 21, 2014by karencomics 2 Comments

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m going to be putting up some older work just to keep up the blogging habit while I’m away from the drawing board […]

Read Article →

Cats, coloured pencils

Sheriff Bill in Colour

March 24, 2014by karencomics 8 Comments

Just a small post today — a while back I drew a little character study of Sheriff Bill Platypus, suggested by my comic jam buddies when I asked what to […]

Read Article →

Character Design, coloured pencils, Ink, Watercolour pencils (aquarelles)

A Golden (Retriever) Opportunity

March 6, 2014by karencomics 12 Comments

Drawing-a-Day 23 I haven’t had a dog friend of my own for many years (my cat Mak likes being an only child) but every now and then I encounter one […]

Read Article →

coloured pencils, Drawing-a-Day

Technique-of-the-Week — Coloured Pencil Flower

March 1, 2014by karencomics 9 Comments

Also, this is Drawing-a-Day number 18! A double-duty drawing! A few weeks ago, I had a request from Ilex of Midwestern Plants (check out her wonderful blog here!) for a tutorial […]

Read Article →

coloured pencils, Drawing-a-Day, Technique, Technique of the Week

Drawing-a-Day 6 — a portrait

February 17, 2014by karencomics 2 Comments

My drawing a day challenge is going along swimmingly, though I’m starting to obsess about it a bit. Tonight I went to life drawing at the studio co-op I belong […]

Read Article →

coloured pencils, Drawing-a-Day

1 2 Next →

Comics Class
Polymer Clay maquettes
Watercolour Basics
Watercolour Wizardry
Technique of the Week

The Quadra Cats, a webcomic

When the neighbourhood cats meet a takeout-obsessed Alien Cat, they become impromptu ambassadors for Earth! Updates Mondays and Thursdays.

Mermaid Music, a webcomic!

Mermaid music is currently on summer vacation, but there's still lots there to read! It's the story of a girl who accidentally runs away to sea, and finds herself in deep water indeed! Click the image to read from the beginning.

All text and images © Karen Gillmore 2014 -2017

...except as otherwise noted. If you share, please link back to this blog — you'll feel a warm glow right in your karma!

Celtic Art

Wolf and the Stones (pen & ink, watercolour, coloured pencil)

Wolf and the Stones (pen & ink)

Eostre (pen & ink, watercolour, coloured pencil)

Eostre (pen & ink)

Celtic Green Man (pen & ink, watercolour)

Celtic Green Man (pen & ink)

Celtic Dragon (pen & ink, embellished version)

Celtic Dragon (pen & ink, outline version)

Elemental Steed: Air (acrylic)

Elemental Steed: Water (acrylic)

Elemental Steed: Fire (acrylic)

Elemental Steed: Earth (acrylic)

Elemental Manifestations: Water (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)

Elemental Manifestations: Fire (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)

Elemental Manifestations: Air (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)

Elemental Manifestations: Earth (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)

Celtic Seahorses (linocut on banana paper)

Celtic Seahorses (pen and ink)

Celtic Seahorses (pen & ink, watercolour, coloured pencil)

Coloured Pencil

“Two Lips” — from a photo I snapped of a bunch of tulips someone had given me. As the petals started to fall away, they got more and more interesting. This one took quite a long time, lots of burnishing.

“White Rose” — I took a bunch of white silk roses into a class I was teaching one day, and we all had a good time trying to make them look natural, adding backgrounds and suggestions of colour.

“Sheltered” — a demonstration on doing an underpainting in dark grey pencil to establish the values turned into this.

“Broken Seashell” — I like to pick up broken seashells, because their curves are challenging and fun to draw. For this one, I used a technique I often use for figure drawing — woking on toned paper and just picking out the deepest shadow and the highlights with white and black pencils.

“Falling Apples” — When I teach a coloured pencil workshop, I often go buy a bag of apples and hand one out to everyone. Apples are excellent subjects for learning how to build up colour from light to dark. After my demo, he whole class goes back to their tables and becomes very quiet for a while — silence is the sound of creativity! One class I actually had time to draw my apple several times on the same page.

“El Morro” — the famous landmark fort at the mouth of Havana harbour. I got really caught up in the rocks on this one.

“Pink Rose” — One of the most burnished coloured pencil paintings I have ever produced. This little thing is the size of a greeting card, and it took me many hours.

“Bear Hangout” — from a photo I took in Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo. There were no visible fences, and everyone wanted to know how I’d gotten so close to the bears! Usually I would just smile and look mysterious.

Woman in Blue — indigo and white Prismacolor pencils on toned paper

Relaxing Woman — burnt sienna and white coloured pencils on toned paper; a fifteen minute pose

The Blues — Indigo and white coloured pencils on toned paper _ ten minute pose

Man Forming a Triangle — coloured pencils on toned paper. Going through my sketches, I was amused to see how many similar poses I’ve drawn over the years — there are only so many ways the human body can fold up, after all. I thought this drawing made an interesting comparison with the previous one.

“Golden Retriever” — coloured pencil. I got the detail of the brush in the background by indenting the paper through a piece of tracing paper with a pencil. The tracing paper protected the working paper from the pencil, and I was able to lightly colour over the indented lines with my coloured pencils, building up layers of mixed colours. I eventually decided the white lines this left were too stark, and went in with very sharp pencils in different colours to tone them down.

Watercolours

“Mount Baker Dreams” — The ferry from Sidney BC to Anacortes , Washington puts in at one of the islands in between. This is what I saw from the dock.

“Sunshine” — funny how cats always find the warm spot in the house!

“Bones of the Earth” — a mountain in the Montana Mission Range that has an oddly shaped top above the treeline. It is not a volcano, but I suspect there is a hollow at the top with a lake. However, I did not climb up there to see.

Wickaninnish Wind — This tree stands by the parking lot at Wickaninnish Beach , in Pacific Rim National Park.

“One Perfect Rose” — an anniversary card I made for my husband some years ago.

“Willow Banks” — part of a large wetland park at the base of Montana’s Mission Mountains that I visited once.

“Rainbow Pebbles” — many of the techniques described here are used in this painting

“Winter Tree” — a Christmas card I did for a friend; the white was all masked off with masking fluid, after which I could paint freely, knowing all that lovely snow would be preserved in pristine white paper.

“Storm Building” — I used a paper towel to lift colour out of a solid sky wash for the clouds, then dripped in a bit of grey, then more water for the backwashes.

pebble sampler — I make samplers of many of the techniques during class, using pebble shapes.

Wildly blooming

“Haunted River” — painted over a saran-wrap texture in multiple glazes; an example of mixing paint on the paper.

“Night Lights” — the background nebula-like blooms of sky colour are salt; the individual stars are dots of white ink.

“Long Beach Sketch” — the backwashes created by dripping water into a wet wash created the clouds and the misty effects in the rocks on the right.

“Edge of the Woods” — I started with very light washes to build up the background and lighter tones of the foreground; the dark trees went in last.

Cuban Tree

The UFOs are coming! Or maybe they are flying hats. Suggested by one of the students, I thought it was a great idea. This demo used salt and gouache to make stars and the explosions (or maybe they are fireworks). The city is just simple brushstrokes with a flat brush.

This demo was to blend a nice sunset wash, and to show how to make very quick trees with brush scribbles.

This demo was to show lifting paint out of a blended wash (and add some more for shadows) to make clouds, and how to make aerial perspective by making distant things lighter and bluer. I wasn’t sure what the landscape was going to be, it sort of evolved as I went along.

Demo to show masking (I masked off the blue areas), and how to draw people in about ten seconds! This is kind of a bizarre picture because the blue areas look like holes in the sky, but I kind of like that effect.

"The Sky's the Limit" — a tiny painting, 4x6 inches, in which I demonstrated lifting wet paint to reveal the light.

“The Sky’s the Limit” — a tiny painting, 4×6 inches, in which I demonstrated lifting wet paint to reveal the light.

"New Horizons" — watercolour, 4x6 inches

“New Horizons” — watercolour, 4×6 inches

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 440 other followers

Follow Karen Gillmore Art on WordPress.com

Find me on Facebook!

Find me on Facebook!

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Posts by Date

July 2017
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Jun
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Monthly Archives

Lots of folks liked these posts!

Technique-of-the-Week — Combining Pen & Ink and Watercolour
Technique of the Week — Watercolour Pencils
Hey, Let's Draw Animals!
Watercolour Basics
The Zooly Art Challenge
An Eclectic Menagerie
Technique of the Week — Demystifying Watercolour Paper
Practice, Practice, Practice! — Achieving right-brain bliss through figure drawing
Drop me a line!
Technique of the Week — Collage, beyond the Magazine

Acrylics art challenge Book Covers Brush and Ink Cats Celtic Character Design Collage coloured pencils Colouring Pages Comics Comics Class comics conventions Cool Stuff for Artists Design Digital colouring Digital Drawing Drawing-a-Day Figure Drawing Illustration Ink Inktober ink wash Inspiration It's an artist's life Linocut Markers Mermaids! oil pastels Paper maché Pen and Ink Photography Poetry Polymer Clay maquettes Printmaking Reblogs Sculpture Song Spam & the Sasquatch Storytelling Studio Technique Technique of the Week tutorials Uncategorized Watercolour Watercolour pencils (aquarelles) zooly