Yellow House

8/17/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

On Day 4 of our heat wave, I went out extra early for my walk-sketch. Typically I encounter only a few other walkers in my neighborhood. On this day, I must have said “good morning” a dozen times – lots of people, especially dog walkers, were out early trying to get ahead of the heat. Although not nearly as bad as the “heat dome” we had a couple of years ago when temps soared into record-breaking triple digits, last week was still brutal for the many in Seattle without AC (which we thankfully have in a few rooms).

Color and mixed media notes: The Caran d’Ache Mixed Media Botanical Set is challenging me from both the color and media angles. In this sketch, the palette worked out well: The house was pale yellow, so the Golden Ochre (033) Fibralo Brush marker was a good shadow color. I wanted to spritz the dark reddish-colored bushes (Supracolor Dark Carmine 089), but unfortunately, I had already applied the water-soluble marker on the house behind them. I was afraid the marker would have dispersed into a muddy mess along with the Supracolor, so I left the pencil dry.

In the past when I’ve mixed markers with water-soluble colored pencils, I’ve most often used non-soluble Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens that stay solid when I activate pencils applied next to them. I’m going to have to plan my sequence of material use more consciously with this combo.

On the upside, I’m enjoying Supracolors, and I’m not missing Museum Aquarelles as much as I had expected. I’ve said before that if I ever had to choose only one colored pencil (heaven forfend!), it would be Supracolor for its versatility, and my answer still stands. When people new to watercolor pencils ask me to recommend my “favorite,” even though my honest answer would be Museum Aquarelles, I don’t recommend them to the uninitiated, mainly because of their high cost. They also aren’t necessarily versatile – they just meet my needs best. Instead, I always recommend Supracolor. I’m happy that this Caran d’Ache set gave me a reason to put Supracolors in my bag.