Demo at Daniel Smith

2/24/18 Julia Carpenter and her reflection giving a demo

Daniel Smith’s art supply stores offer many free product demos regularly. I don’t attend as often as I’d like to because the Seattle store isn’t very convenient for me, but I occasionally do, and I’ve learned interesting techniques and met inspiring artists that way. (I initially met Don Colley at a demo and instantly became a fan only a couple of months after I started sketching in 2011; some of his sketches that I saw that day are still seared permanently in my brain as the kind of urban sketches I aspire to.)

Last Saturday I was especially interested in that day’s demo – drawing animals with Derwent Drawing Pencils (my link goes to Blick.com because, sadly, Daniel Smith doesn’t sell anything but paints online anymore). I have a set of those colored pencils, and they are very soft and have especially thick cores. The relatively narrow palette of 24 colors is unusual in that all the hues are earthy and subdued – ideal for landscapes and other natural subjects. The white one is a favorite with toned paper, and I have used a few rocky, sandy hues when I’ve sketched at a beach or a national park.

Julia Carpenter, the artist who demo’d the Derwents that day, put the soft colors to good use drawing a cat and then a dormouse from photos. Of course I was paying attention – but I also couldn’t resist sketching her.