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Pastel mixed media drawing
-Clairefontaine Pastel mat (I swear by this paper)
-Pan pastels and a cheap makeup blender sponge works magic apparently.
-My new Derwent Chromaflow pencils. As strange as the circumstances of these are (breakage, quality standards Derwent??) I do love them. Try to get them on sale though because the lead breakage can sometimes be frustrating. A good sharpener helps but doesn’t solve the issue.
-The gold ink is Talens Ecoline gold. I often use Daler Rowney gold ink because it’s a warmer tone but in this case I did like the toned down gold from Talens. Hot tip: when your bottle cap is stuck (rip fingers) pour some hot water on the lid(not on the bottle) to open it up.
This was my first pastel drawing like this, I had a bit more patience here because the eyes are very detailed. The hair is purple metallic ink by Daler Rowney.
my traditional corner in my studio
My favourite tools here:
-Talens ecoline inks
-Herbin inks (my recent addition)
-Faber Castell Pitt pens
-Derwent inktense paint pans (my normal watercolour one is a Cotman pocket box)
-My go to coloured pencils (see posts below)
-Papers are: Hahnemüle Bamboo mixed media, Hahnemüle Agaave paper, Canson XL watercolour sketchbook and Hahnemüle Harmony hot pressed sketchbook.
Yes I sold my soul to Hahnemüle haha.
-a base of Talens ecoline (and here also Herbin inks)
-Finishing the lineart with Polychromos pencils (they sharpen so well)
-Adding depth with Pitt pens

Here’s a start of a painting, tools as following:
-Pilot color eno for sketching (erasable)
-mix of Staedtler Ergosoft and Bruynzeel Design pencils for lineart these are my go-to pencils for first drafts since they are cheaper than my finishing pencils(Faber Castell) so that’s a good way to save money. Hot tip: always buy the Bruynzeel pencils on sale because these are flawed pencils (breakage), just fyi 🙂
Why only for the first lineart? because pencil lineart melts away after watercolouring and you have to reline everything anyway :’)

2023 up

older pieces below

An older piece made with Finetec metallic colours. They are the finest and more expensive metallic watercolours. These drawings in big size were for an exhibition.
I don’t often use my Derwent Procolour pencils. I’m often confused what they’re good for :’) Not pigmented enough for smooth lineart it seems. Not soft enough for blending. Not sure how I used them here. I do use a handful of Caran d’ache luminance pencils for extra smooth blending (only a handful because of their price tag).
This lady is the biggest size I ever worked on. Her eyes and beautiful and shimmery, based on my mom’s. I mixed Daler Rowney metallic inks with Ecoline in the hair.
A technique I rarely use but looks very smooth is to burnish coloured pencils going from dark to light and blend with Luminance pencils for the smoothest finish ever.
This drawing took me many hours and was for an exhibition.
The paper I used was a cotton hot press which is no longer produced (very sad). I’m trying various papers since but I shy from expensive paper unless the project is important haha.