The Wolf, oil pastels and acrylic paint

True. I haven’t been drawing much of anything in-between the assignments for The Year of the Fairytale. I can’t quite say to you or myself that I have good reason, just life being life. I did, however, manage to make a sketch of Little Red while speaking to a good friend of mine on the phone.

Maybe I need to talk on the phone more often!

After doing the sketch I felt like I was ready to begin the first assignment from Carla for Little Red Riding Hood. Were were to mask out our subject and then colour in with oil pastel. I haven’t used oil pastel much so it was fun to get all smudgy with it.

The second was using acrylic paint as a base on the paper then repeating the masking and pastel. I then needed a tool to etch into the fox  wolf. I searched through my old art box (a fishing tackle box) and found this:

I did not recall ever seeing this and at first had no idea what it was and didn’t care. All I knew was that it was the perfect tool and I was super excited! (I later realized when I posted it to twitter that it’s a dip pen. Duh. Felt like one too.)

Assignment three entailed putting down a layer of oil pastel, then a thin-ish layer of paint to etch into. My first attempt was pretty awful indeed. I discovered I had applied the paint too thick and it was peeling too easily. I lost my groove and just made myself finish the piece, promising that I would try again tomorrow.

Fresh and new the next day, I tried yet again, which is something I’ve rarely done in the past. If something doesn’t work I quit. Not good, I know. I also used to just destroy a piece if I didn’t like the way it was coming along. Now I make myself finish it and even post it to let myself know that not every piece will be just as I want. I have to accept these as learning experiences.

I went ahead with that in mind and the second try on the third technique worked much better. I also had a different illustration in mind after mulling it over through the night.

The larger pieces of brown showing through were made by putting down painter’s tape and pulling it off slowly. Really like the effect. I also ran out of the reddish brown pastel and opted for another colour. Looks more like a wolf this time around, but I gotta say, I like the fox too… 😉

And yes, I think I will try this again, just for fun!