Questions about working traditionally: pastel, gouache, and coloured pencils

xin li

Hi everyone,
Hope you have a good week so far.
I am experimenting working with traditonal media for illustrations. I have two questions:

I have been really facinated by soft pastel. I love the texture, and how forgiven the medium is. I am looking for examples of picture books done in soft pastel (or mainly uses soft pastel). Does anyone came across books like that?
I tried using gouache and colored pencil to create illustrations. I needed to add ligher things in a darker background. But after putting some layers of colored pencil down on paper, it is difficult to add lighter values on top. See the image below: for the rain, I added white gouache over colored pencil. But I have learned today it was not a good idea to add water based materials over wax/oil based material (the white paint may fall off over time). I am courious if anyone knows other techniques to add highlights on the image created with colored pencils.

rainly day.jpg

Kim Rosenlof

@xin-li Your picture is so cute! haven’t used colored pencils for a long time, but I used to leave white/light areas blank without any pencil on it with the white paper showing through. Of course that would be hard for the picture you did since there are so many of them. I also have used an x~acto knife to gently scrape off the colored pencil in an area I didn’t want it. I found a colored pencil artist that has a video of what she uses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H3hOHx-qZ8 . I have seen others use this too so I assume it works. I did see there is a scotch tape method too, but I am not sure how well it works to get everything off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=curwgcLhgNk. I wonder if oil pastel or pastels could be used too, but I am not sure if they would work very well or not. Good luck. I hope you find something that works well for you.

AngelinaKizz

Hi! Such a cute illustration!

Before learning illustration, I only worked in colored pencil and pencil.
There’s a few ways I like to create white hilights.

For hairs, I like to either use an xacto knife, and gently scratch away the hairs. I prefer this method with a soft waxy pencil over an oil pencil. And I find the smoother the and heavier the paper the better this works. Doesn’t work with something like a cold press watercolor paper.
With something like a watercolor paper, I like to indent the paper with a metal tool. Can be a darning needle, a mechanical pencil not sharpened, a dry pen etc… and create indentations in the paper where you want the white to stay white. You’ll be able to color over it with a gentle touch and the indents won’t fill in.
Another option I like, for any pencil crayon type, on most papers, is an electric eraser. I use a nail file to grind the eraser into a point and I can get it as fine or wide as I need. This works with wax pencils or oil pencils,

I hope that helps!

xin li

@Kim-Rosenlof thank you very much for the video link. Unfortunately, I searched all the webshops in Norway and could not find the touch-up texture product. It contains some kind of chemical that is not allowed for international shipping. So looks like I will have to wait for the next change traveling to some other countries to get this product.

I would be so nervous to use the scraping method, hahaha... But maybe I will try it, because why not?

xin li

@AngelinaKizz
Thank you for sharing these cool techniques. I am especially interested in the electric eraser approach.

NessIllustration

@xin-li There is a great, talented picture book illustrator from my neck of the woods (Quebec!) who works in soft pastel! Her name is Geneviève Godbout. https://www.genevievegodboutillustration.com/

Melissa_Bailey

@xin-li Beautiful illustration, as always! Hope you're having a good week too.

Examples of picture books done in soft pastel (or mixed media with pastel):

The Princess Mouse - as far as I can tell, Leonid Gore mainly uses pastel, with some acrylic
So Much Snow - mixed media, including chalk pastel
I Can't Draw - mixed media, including pastel
Francis Discovers Possible (mixed media) -- you can look at Shahrzad Maydani's process in her Instagram stories

To add highlights over darker colored pencil layers, some artists use white gel pens. I've found that the Sakura Gelly Roll pens make nice highlights over both wax based and oil based pencils like Prismacolor, Polychromos, Derwent Lightfast, Luminance, and Lyra Polycolor. I've found I can even layer colored pencils over top of the marks I made with the Gelly Roll pen. Other artists use white Posca pens over top of colored pencils to create highlights. I haven't tried it, but it makes sense that acrylic would be more durable than gouache.

Hope this helps!

xin li

@NessIllustration said in Questions about working traditionally: pastel, gouache, and coloured pencils:

https://www.genevievegodboutillustration.com/

Oh, my. I knew her work for some years. I always thought her work was done with soft colored pencil. Thank you very much for the info. I will look closely into her work.

xin li

@Melissa_Bailey Thank you so much. These are exactly what I was looking for, the application of beautiful pastel texture in narrative work.

I could use acrylic paint on top of the colored pencil too, but it is the same problem - a water-based medium on top of an oil or wax-based medium. It is actually not a problem when comes to book illustration because the illustrations are meant to be reproduced in book format. I am only thinking about this if I want to sell originals later - it is good to think a bit ahead (or maybe I am over-thinking it, hehe).

AngelinaKizz

@xin-li the gel pens will eventually push away from the wax of a pencil crayon. The best product for painting over pencil crayon is the brush and pencil white texture touch up, though it's unavailable to you. You could try a workable fixative over your work, and then use a gel pen followed by another layer of fixative. But straight on the pencil, it won't last if you sell the original.

tom.barrett

Lynne Chapman does all her illustration in soft pastel. Here is a video of her working on one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56YI_5_OUqs

xin li

@tom-barrett thank you for the link, Tom.

geekinm

Hello, it’s not quite soft pastel but your question reminded me of this https://youtu.be/h1x1Sy3jY0A Dandelion’s Dream is a book illustrated in powdered charcoal by Yoko Tanaka http://yoko-tanaka.com/dandelions-dream/

I thought you might find it interesting too.