Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Art question - how do you...?

In the past few weeks I have been sketching/drawing in my own personal moly and had not put color on page until last week. The drawing was of a woman's head/shoulders and I used colored pencil to give her color. I completed her face and hair but did not put any color in the background yet. When I opened up the moly yesterday to work on another sketch I found that the color from her hair (dark brown) is rubbing off on the facing page - which is the background.

My question is:
*Is there something that I can do to keep this from happening?
*What do you ladies do when using colored pencil to keep it from rubbing off and possibly ruining your sketch?
I also have the same question in regards to using black watercolor - with the first entry in my moly_x_70 moly - I wanted several very dark (black) elements but found that the dark watercolor is rubbing off on the light face of my work.
*How do you get the dark background or other items without having them ruin everything else?

Those are pretty much the same question, but ehh - I need a little guidance from someone who is more seasoned in the use of different media.

Thanks!

6 comments:

  1. Hey Stacey,

    I'm not sure I can answer all your question but I can answer a few of them :)

    first off, what type of colored pencil are you using? maybe the reason for the rub-off is because they are too soft? I know in the moly x portrait groups people often spray fix their work because they tend to use graphite or charcoal when sketching the group members...maybe try that?? not totally sure on this one as I don't recall having it happen with my prismacolor pencils.

    As for your watercolor questions...the problem here really lays more with the paper in the fold out moly's rather than with you, I think. This type of paper doesn't really absorb and so that water just sort of sits on top. When I want a dark or black background I use an old beat up watercolor brush and a bottle of black ink, usually India ink. It covers really well, doesn't bleed through the pages and it drys really quickly avoiding that worry you have of rubbing off on the facing pages.

    hope that helps :)

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  2. Thanks Kelley!! I never thought about using ink. Mostly because it scares me - my little one likes to touch things. I may give it a shot though.

    As for the colored pencils - I use prismacolor pencils - spent the money to get the really expensive BIG set. I will try to get some spray fix and see if that helps.

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  3. hmmm...do you color really hard? LOL I only ask because I haven't noticed my prismacolors rubbing off at all...strange.

    I've used modge podge before over the tops of my entries...usually just when I made an error and needed to seal another piece of paper in. it left the pages a little sticky at first but afterwords it left a nice gloss.

    i suppose that's another option :)

    don't worry about the ink, its not nearly so scary when you are doing the background :) if you were working on your main focal point I'd say test, test, test...but otherwise go nuts :)

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  4. I didn't color really hard...I did lay down quite a bit of color, but you would think that there would still be somet way for the color to stay.

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  5. hmmmmmm....I would try the spray fix first, it's what it's made for to seal your art, unless of course you had added additional sheets of paper or small items you wanted to completely coat together. :)

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  6. that's so strange about the prismacolors! hope the fix works.

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