Illustration Mediums

For my illustrations, I have been practising with using pencils, and a black felt pen. I really like how pencil looks, I love how you can shade with pencil, however pencil doesn't stand out in the way that pen does. I have been loving the feel of using ink pen, as it looks so bold and crisp. It can also be blended with a lick of the finger, or water, giving a very tonal look. I would like to use pen in my illustrations, at least to create the line art. As for the colour medium, I need to take into account my palette.

My palette as set by the Nobrow brief states that I can work in any colour mode I wish to use, however the palette used by Nobrow is often limited. The brief suggests working in 3 solid colours, and when overlapped, the secondary colours will appear, (using transparent ink).

(An extract from the nobrow brief)

I may go for using either a 3 tone palette, or a black and white scheme using ink and water, but I will wait until Sam Arthur comes into the studio, before I make my mind up, as he will be visiting February 14th.

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*Update:


Pastel tones can be accomplished by using such mediums as coloured pencil, chalk pastels, oil pastels, watercolour paint, acrylic paint, and ink.
However, I will be taking inspiration from my experience with using these tones, in the last unit, which was entitled "The Book of Drawings", I did find using watercolours to be very intuitive, enjoyable, as well as precise. Also, to me the colours and textures given from using watercolour really seemed better than the other medium techniques I tried out. I tried out in total 6 different mediums, and I decided to choose watercolour and coloured pencil. however during the course of the unit, I found myself using watercolour paint the most, as it was the most fun to use in my opinion.

An example of using watercolour and a bold pen on a cartoon-style draft. The watercolour gives off beautiful pastel tones, that are very appealing to the eye. Coupling this with the bold lines of the pen, and this is a really strong image that really stands out to the eyes.

This style is very scratchy, and it has a very tonal look about it. I love the contrast of white, grey and black.

Ditto, with a rodent character.

Thomas.