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I just couldn't let go of the idea I felt like I'd failed to realize on my Arteza Watercolor Polaroids ; the image of some snowy evergreen trees with the Aurora Borealis behind them. And since I had some supplies I wanted to revisit anyway, I decided it was worth a second attempt using a few different techniques.

This is a sort of follow-up to when I originally tested out the Derwent Inktense colored pencils , as even then I knew I wanted to do more experimenting with them and get more colors to work with.

I haven't done much since the original drawing with them primarily because of the limited 18-color palette I originally had. But I have managed to finally get my hands on a 12 set to expand my color selection a little, thanks to clearance prices induced by needing to clear shelf space at my local Michael's. And so I figured it was about time to revisit the pencils as a whole and see if anything new came up or if anything from my original impressions had changed.

I'll be honest, I went into the swatches and this drawing with the new pencils with heightened curiosity and an open mind, as since last time I was working with a set that was showing its age in a few different ways. For all I knew, the newer pencils could've provided a totally different experience from the old ones.

Funnily enough, no, my experience was largely the same.

To be fair, I remembered from my experience last time and knew from all instances of just swatching the pencils that, especially for the price you pay, the Inktense pencils are pretty underwhelming as just colored pencils. They can't do anything better than Prismacolor can in that department. So I didn't waste my time on a new dry/colored pencil format only drawing with them, and instead jumped straight away into using them with water, which still seems to be the place they shine brightest.

Just to deviate for a second before I get into that, though; I noticed during my swatching and some less pretty testing that the new Inktense pencils had the same issue I'd had with the older ones; when you start to really apply pressure and pile on the color/pigment, the pencils have almost a "sticky" type feeling to them and some of the pigment sort of grinds itself into the paper, and it looks pretty weird. There's just a lot of friction between the pencil and the paper in an uncomfortable way. I wouldn't say it's a dealbreaker, but it is something to watch out for and just another reason I don't think these are worth investing in if you're not going to use them with water.

Speaking of which...

I started by stamping my trees on some watercolor paper--and not the dinky stuff, this is nice 100% cotton cold pressed paper, so it has enough texture for colored pencils and can handle plenty of water--masked said trees with some washi tape, and then I scribbled in some rough color placement with the pencils, knowing the pigment would spread pretty far once it got wet and that no matter what I did I'd probably be doing a lot of back and forth between smoothing/blending out the colors and adding more.

I was reminded pretty quickly of the fact that compared to regular watercolor pencils, the Inktense pencils take more water to melt the color down, as well as sometimes if you press too firmly when you put the color down initially, the pencil strokes may not want to fully melt anyway. In this case, that issue had its uses, given the traditional look of the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, but if you like super smooth blending and you want the colored pencil texture to completely go away when you hit the color with water, I have to strongly suggest staying away from these.

After wetting my first scribbly layer, I started the cycle that I knew was coming and started scribbling a little bit here, a little there, on the still-wet paper. This and dipping the tips of the pencils into the water and then scribbling with them tend to be the better ways to work with them, at least from my experience. Taking a brush to the pencil tip and/or applying the pencil and then wetting it with a brush works fine for lighter washes, but the best color payout comes from, like I said, either taking the pencil directly to wet paper or dipping the pencil tip in water to make it into a creamy, oil-pastel type consistency.

I did a lot of dipping the tip into water and using that combined with the wet paper to blend out my colors, and I have to say while the white Inktense pencil still fails to impress me on its own, it does work pretty nicely as a blender, at least when it's wet. Beyond what I've already mentioned, the main issues I had while working on this piece mostly came down to getting the right color depth/intensity where I wanted it and making sure everything blended out the way I wanted, which was all more on me than it was the pencils.

Once I was pretty much finished with the Inktense portion of the picture before it dried I was still a little bit iffy on how it looked. It was still more streaky than I was convinced it should've been, and I wasn't entirely sure about the colors themselves being what I'd hoped for either. But I let it dry overnight and I felt a lot better about it when I came back to it the next day. Maybe it just needed to dry and settle, maybe I just needed to refresh my eyes, maybe both; I don't know.

Still, I went in and did my best to do the star-splatter with the white Inktense pencil. And while this does technically work, it takes a lot longer and loads more patience than just grabbing my bottle of white Speedball ink would've, but I refrained in the name of experimentation and trying to push the Inktense a bit farther. It's also weirdly not as precise, since the Inktense pigment really doesn't like leaving the pencil, so it comes off as a little thicker on the brush and therefore has less good star-producing taps in it then the liquid ink does.

Needless to say, I did end up touching that up a little with a white gel pen, as always.

Then I unmasked my trees and filled in some spots/went back over some that weren't black enough with a Copic multiliner and did my signature with it as well so it wouldn't be too distracting.

After that, since I had originally drawn out a circle as the share I wanted to work in, I cut the circle out and just for ambiance I went along the exposed edge of the paper with a black marker.

In the end, the final product does look quite nice and I feel more like I've properly seen this idea through. (Although I make no promises this will be the last time it pops up in my gallery. )

Still, my opinion on the Inktense remains pretty firm that they are a unique, albeit pretty fun thing to play with when you use them with water. But if you're not going to do that, I wouldn't bother investing in them when there are plenty of other options out there that do the plain colored pencil job a lot better. Even Derwent has like four or five different artist-grade pencil lines to choose from just for that purpose if you're extremely loyal to them as a brand for some reason.

For me and my purposes though, I would still like to get my hands on the full 72 set at some point and I do think I will continue to play around with them in the meantime. They're interesting and they do have their uses for me as someone who tends to favor mixed-media art.

I'm really excited for the next piece I've got going up for you guys though; it turned out so well and I can't wait to share it! And of course I have some projects in the works that I hope end up being equally exciting, so keep an eye out for what's coming up.

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

Description
I just couldn't let go of the idea I felt like I'd failed to realize on my Arteza Watercolor Polaroids ; the image of some snowy evergreen trees with the Aurora Borealis behind them. And since I had some supplies I wanted to revisit anyway, I decided it was worth a second attempt using a few different techniques.

This is a sort of follow-up to when I originally tested out the Derwent Inktense colored pencils , as even then I knew I wanted to do more experimenting with them and get more colors to work with.

I haven't done much since the original drawing with them primarily because of the limited 18-color palette I originally had. But I have managed to finally get my hands on a 12 set to expand my color selection a little, thanks to clearance prices induced by needing to clear shelf space at my local Michael's. And so I figured it was about time to revisit the pencils as a whole and see if anything new came up or if anything from my original impressions had changed.

I'll be honest, I went into the swatches and this drawing with the new pencils with heightened curiosity and an open mind, as since last time I was working with a set that was showing its age in a few different ways. For all I knew, the newer pencils could've provided a totally different experience from the old ones.

Funnily enough, no, my experience was largely the same.

To be fair, I remembered from my experience last time and knew from all instances of just swatching the pencils that, especially for the price you pay, the Inktense pencils are pretty underwhelming as just colored pencils. They can't do anything better than Prismacolor can in that department. So I didn't waste my time on a new dry/colored pencil format only drawing with them, and instead jumped straight away into using them with water, which still seems to be the place they shine brightest.

Just to deviate for a second before I get into that, though; I noticed during my swatching and some less pretty testing that the new Inktense pencils had the same issue I'd had with the older ones; when you start to really apply pressure and pile on the color/pigment, the pencils have almost a "sticky" type feeling to them and some of the pigment sort of grinds itself into the paper, and it looks pretty weird. There's just a lot of friction between the pencil and the paper in an uncomfortable way. I wouldn't say it's a dealbreaker, but it is something to watch out for and just another reason I don't think these are worth investing in if you're not going to use them with water.

Speaking of which...

I started by stamping my trees on some watercolor paper--and not the dinky stuff, this is nice 100% cotton cold pressed paper, so it has enough texture for colored pencils and can handle plenty of water--masked said trees with some washi tape, and then I scribbled in some rough color placement with the pencils, knowing the pigment would spread pretty far once it got wet and that no matter what I did I'd probably be doing a lot of back and forth between smoothing/blending out the colors and adding more.

I was reminded pretty quickly of the fact that compared to regular watercolor pencils, the Inktense pencils take more water to melt the color down, as well as sometimes if you press too firmly when you put the color down initially, the pencil strokes may not want to fully melt anyway. In this case, that issue had its uses, given the traditional look of the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, but if you like super smooth blending and you want the colored pencil texture to completely go away when you hit the color with water, I have to strongly suggest staying away from these.

After wetting my first scribbly layer, I started the cycle that I knew was coming and started scribbling a little bit here, a little there, on the still-wet paper. This and dipping the tips of the pencils into the water and then scribbling with them tend to be the better ways to work with them, at least from my experience. Taking a brush to the pencil tip and/or applying the pencil and then wetting it with a brush works fine for lighter washes, but the best color payout comes from, like I said, either taking the pencil directly to wet paper or dipping the pencil tip in water to make it into a creamy, oil-pastel type consistency.

I did a lot of dipping the tip into water and using that combined with the wet paper to blend out my colors, and I have to say while the white Inktense pencil still fails to impress me on its own, it does work pretty nicely as a blender, at least when it's wet. Beyond what I've already mentioned, the main issues I had while working on this piece mostly came down to getting the right color depth/intensity where I wanted it and making sure everything blended out the way I wanted, which was all more on me than it was the pencils.

Once I was pretty much finished with the Inktense portion of the picture before it dried I was still a little bit iffy on how it looked. It was still more streaky than I was convinced it should've been, and I wasn't entirely sure about the colors themselves being what I'd hoped for either. But I let it dry overnight and I felt a lot better about it when I came back to it the next day. Maybe it just needed to dry and settle, maybe I just needed to refresh my eyes, maybe both; I don't know.

Still, I went in and did my best to do the star-splatter with the white Inktense pencil. And while this does technically work, it takes a lot longer and loads more patience than just grabbing my bottle of white Speedball ink would've, but I refrained in the name of experimentation and trying to push the Inktense a bit farther. It's also weirdly not as precise, since the Inktense pigment really doesn't like leaving the pencil, so it comes off as a little thicker on the brush and therefore has less good star-producing taps in it then the liquid ink does.

Needless to say, I did end up touching that up a little with a white gel pen, as always.

Then I unmasked my trees and filled in some spots/went back over some that weren't black enough with a Copic multiliner and did my signature with it as well so it wouldn't be too distracting.

After that, since I had originally drawn out a circle as the share I wanted to work in, I cut the circle out and just for ambiance I went along the exposed edge of the paper with a black marker.

In the end, the final product does look quite nice and I feel more like I've properly seen this idea through. (Although I make no promises this will be the last time it pops up in my gallery. )

Still, my opinion on the Inktense remains pretty firm that they are a unique, albeit pretty fun thing to play with when you use them with water. But if you're not going to do that, I wouldn't bother investing in them when there are plenty of other options out there that do the plain colored pencil job a lot better. Even Derwent has like four or five different artist-grade pencil lines to choose from just for that purpose if you're extremely loyal to them as a brand for some reason.

For me and my purposes though, I would still like to get my hands on the full 72 set at some point and I do think I will continue to play around with them in the meantime. They're interesting and they do have their uses for me as someone who tends to favor mixed-media art.

I'm really excited for the next piece I've got going up for you guys though; it turned out so well and I can't wait to share it! And of course I have some projects in the works that I hope end up being equally exciting, so keep an eye out for what's coming up.

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram