I was going to talk about something completely different, but so many people this week have written posts talking about their reach and engagement on Instagram dropping significantly and is it their photos, their art? They are generally feeling bad about themselves and what they are doing because they see likes or engagement dropping on their posts. Then they spend long hours analyzing what they think might be wrong with their art/photos and trying to work out the algorithm. They try to work out what will be popular. They post something, it doesn’t do as well as they hoped, they feel worse abo ..read more

Today l am soooo excited l probably won’t stop writing for ages. I have been testing out my new Derwent Lightfast pencils, and l have been longing to tell you all about them. But l wanted to make sure l had tried them out properly first of all. l have now completed several pieces using pretty much only the Lightfast pencils. They are an oil based pencil, tested to be ‘100% lightfast’ (please read last week’s blog for my thoughts on that). They are a premium quality, professional, artists pencil and they now come in 100 colors. And before l tell you any more, l am going to start by saying that ..read more

I have spent far too long lately working on pieces that l am not happy with. With every piece l can go back and see things l would want to improve, but just lately l have worked several pieces that l am not happy with at all. Some l should have known right from the start, before l even put pen (or pencil) to paper, the ladybirds that when l blew the photo up to draw were all pixelated and l could see nothing clearly. I should have known. The seahorse l began two years ago and left unfinished - there was a reason! But l got so much wrong with the piece below, l thought it would be interesting t ..read more

* Indicates required field Email * I agree to receiving marketing and promotional materials * Subscribe to Newsletter This week l wanted to talk about lightfastness and l probably won’t be very helpful as l have more questions than answers. Often you will hear professional artists talk about using only lightfast pencils and acid free paper etc. This is something that l normally do unless l am trialing cheaper brands. It makes sense if you are spending 40-50 hours or more on a piece to use the best materials money can buy. And nobody wants their work to fade fast. But this past couple of ..read more

Today’s post will be a little longer than normal as l have spent the week trying out my new Chromaflow pencils. These are by Derwent who always produce exciting and innovative products. These pencils though are from the more budget friendly end of the spectrum, so l thought it would be really interesting to see how they perform. First, let me say that they are not light fast rated so if that is important to you, these are not the pencils for you. But even those of us who prefer to work with lightfast pencils might like a few more budget friendly pencils on hand for our sketch books and ideas ..read more

Well, l could talk about pencils all day! And l could probably write at least a dozen blog posts. But today l want to talk about something that isn’t often discussed and most artists don’t even think about it when purchasing pencils. Value for money. There are just so many pencil brands on the market. You can spend anything up to around $5 per pencil. You can buy them for less than $1 per pencil. Now l am always going to tell you that personally, l would rather have fewer colors of higher quality, than a 100 colors of a poor quality pencil. But the point l would really like to make is that whi ..read more

I was thinking about this the other day because l thought l was done! At least with the first part of the drawing. Until l took a photo! And what a disappointment that was! It certainly no longer looked finished! This is my tip for today. Take a photo. Then really look at it. For some reason it seems that when you look at a photo you suddenly see what you could not see when the piece was in front of your eyes. Sometimes l will see that a shape is a little off, sometimes l will see that l need more contrast or darker colors or more highlights. Sometimes as in the photo below l will see that it ..read more

I got asked this question recently and it is also one l have been thinking about for a while. To a certain extent it depends what you are drawing, if you are drawing someone’s pet it may be more important to be exact. Too much ‘artistic license’ and they might not recognize their pet. But what about when you are just using a beautiful photo as a reference? l used to think that l must copy exactly every little detail. I will say that l learned a lot from trying to copy every little detail, even if l wasn’t always successful. Then l read an interview with a famous artist and the way that they sp ..read more

I feel like there should be a prize for guessing correctly? How many layers do you think to go from photo 1 to photo 2? I am working on a tutorial and l decided to photograph every single layer. And actually the photo on the right had more layers added after l took that shot! I was thinking about this because l often get asked by people what they can do to improve their work and you know most of the time their work is excellent. It just needs more time spent on it. More layers. Which is interesting because the difference between something that looks average and something that looks good can r ..read more

Well, l think it has been over two years since l wrote a post! And l feel just like l did at the start, that weird feeling of talking to myself! l wanted to spend a bit of time talking about white pencils. I get asked repeatedly about white pencils. So first of all let me tell you right off that none of them will give you a brilliant white highlight over a darker colour. If you are seeing brilliant white highlights in a colored pencil drawing it is being achieved using a different method or a different medium and l will discuss ways of achieving a bright white in my next post. Here l will talk ..read more