Smudgy

2/28/19 Pentel Color Brushes containing water-soluble inks washed with water
for shading -- one of the earliest tricks I learned. (2-min. poses)

When I first started sketching, one of the earliest speed techniques I learned was using a waterbrush to wash water-soluble fountain pen ink. Bleeding the ink line is one of the easiest ways to give the impression of shading very quickly. It was one of my favorite techniques for years. Although I don’t draw with a fountain pen as much as I used to, I still use this same basic technique during the shortest poses at life-drawing sessions with brush pens containing water-soluble ink. With a quick swipe of the waterbrush, I have instant shading and a hint of form.

2/28/18 Conte smudged with a fingertip (5-min. poses)

The past few weeks, I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with various dry materials and finding ways to smudge lines quickly and efficiently with the same intention: evoking form with a bit of shading. Dry materials are not quite as fast as wet ones, of course, but using materials like smudgy Conte crayon and soft colored pencils can be almost as efficient (charcoal would probably be the most efficient dry material for this technique, but you know how I feel about that). I haven’t mastered two-minute poses with dry media yet, but they’ve become my favorite for five-minute (and longer) poses.

With Conte, I can smudge lines easily with nothing but a fingertip, but colored pencils are a bit more resistant. In the middle of a pose, an idea suddenly occurred to me: When I’m using graphite, I don’t smudge with a fingertip; I reach for a tortillon. Why not try that with colored pencils, too?

Eureka! The tortillon is a much more effective smudging tool with soft colored pencils than a finger is. Then I started thinking about all the other smudging and blending tools I had at home. . . the proverbial wheels were spinning. Stay tuned tomorrow for the results.

2/28/19 Derwent colored pencil smudged with tortillon (10-min. poses)

2/28/19 Derwent colored pencil smudged with tortillon (20-min. pose)