This is my latest miniature partly inspired by a very cold and snowy winter of 2011-2012 and partly made because right now here in California it’s overly warm and sunny even by local standards. In the process of bringing winter closer to me I found out that a digital canvas can take a fair amount of scraping with x-acto knife which is pretty convenient for putting snow over heavily darkened areas.
The original is available in my Miniatures online gallery for $35.00
Looking back at all my attempts to make colored pencils play nice with the digital canvas, I have to admit that they certainly prefer a traditional linen one. So the blank digital canvases that I still have will be used for other media. For example, a graphite pencil:
Miniature – graphite pencil on canvas, 3.5″ x 2.5″
Things learned with this one:
– only soft graphite works, harder grades scrape the priming off the canvas without leaving noticeable marks
– for blending, small sponge makeup applicators and bristle brushes work best
– common erasers are of little help when you need a highlight or to scrape off a mistake, but kneaded eraser works wonderfully (I am using a Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth eraser that comes with its own case and like it better than other brands I had before)
– an x-acto knife can be good for small bright highlights, but using it requires care because it easily gets deep into priming and scrapes it off
– areas treates with a x-acto knife are still good for blending tools, but pencil marks behave unpredictably, so better be avoided
My other canvas experiment that is yet to be finished is a mix of the black India ink and graphite. I am not sure how I like the result so far, but we’ll see.
