Bright Pear Reflecting

Bright Pear Reflecting

Pastel on paper, 5" x 7"

A few days ago, I got a lovely set of 15 Caran d'Ache Soft Pastels, a wonderful assortment for a Colourist with bright saturated colors in warm and cool, plus my favorite three earths - yellow ochre, reddish earth and dark brown, black and white. It's a perfect small range. I also finally after literally decades of wanting to do so, bought the full range of Canson Mi Tientes colors in full sheets.

The first time I wanted ot stock that paper in all its colors at home, I was a teenager and it cost too much. For all those years and decades, I bought a sheet or two at a time. Or a dozen sheets a week sometimes when I did portraits in New Orleans, often trying out a new color or two.

I've spent far more on other supplies, watercolors, great brushes, pastels and colored pencils sets. The whole stack cost me less than $80... so my putting it off was rather silly. Now it feels as if I have the whole art store at hand. 

The color I used today is "Oyster." It's also in the basic pad which has been a lot of how I got my Mi-Tientes over the years, convenient size at 9" x 12" and easy to cut those sheets in half for smaller works. I'll be cutting down the big sheets the way I did in New Orleans on a good day, then store them sealed in a plastic tub to avoid attracting bugs. That big a paper stock can easily be bug damaged or water damaged. I may do the same to the big watercolor paper sheets in there and lightly pencil brand on them. Especially the tinted Bockingford sheets.

Last, this evening when I was done, I tried out my new Pentel Pocket Brush pen. It's surprisingly great! I read about it on Gurney's Journey and had to have one. As mentioned, it takes a little learning curve to control the very fine tip, but is wonderfully responsive. Some sloppy sketches before this and then this Ari gesture since he looked up at me squinting with his eyes nearly shut, just, face turned up and ears interested.

Ari Cat from life

8 1/2" x 4" Pentel Pocket Brush Pen on paper

Love the responsiveness of the pen and the very fine lines it can get. Practice will improve these but I'm very happy with this cat gesture!