Painting 33

Ref 885 / 886  Working with graphite pencil in a mixed media (watercolor and/or gouache in either cold or hot press paper ) 
I use to use just for the initial sketch, to plan out a composition, and not further in the artwork's development. But with all the variations an 'ordinary' pencil comes in, you'll be missing out so many possibilities, so now I´m working with it.
Let the Initial Lines Show Through: Don't feel compelled to hide all traces of your initial pencil drawing, go over it with a brush and water, then the graphite turns into grey transparent paint, like a watercolor wash. Working with it onto wet paper produces a soft, broad line, that spreads out at the edges
In my following example after initial sketch and after partially brushed adding wáter, I splashing masking liquid already diluted with wáter with a fan brush help in a horizontal position, tapping with my fingers and after the transfer to the paper has been done, either with help gravity or with a small and/or same brush put in a vertical way to mimic the rain (waiting to dry)
Always around the painted objects I try to left paper without touch to conform a final brigth
2nd stage is to paint above the masking fluid with watercolor paint either to markers and/or brush, sometimes the paint goes around the little masking fluid droplets and sometimes I lef them or take it away in accordance results, Finally I added again White gouche with the fan brush technique to make brights were I need it most, with the same technique I did the following couple of paintings
In the first painting (ref 885) I didn´t use markers and it is above cold press in my second one I used markers and it is above hot press paper (ref 886) are the only differences, and again soluble graphite worked pretty good



                             Ref 885 Strollig at the park in August

                                       Ref 886 McLaren F1 concept car under heavy rain

Note regarding wáter soluble graphite pencils; If you work into still-wet areas, the line spreads or bleeds a bit. If you work onto areas that have dried, it's as if you were working on a 'normal' pencil artwork.
If you like the look of graphite, but prefer painting, you might try Liquid Pencil, which as the name suggests is graphite in paint form. It comes in two versions, permanent (once dried that's it, like ink) and rewettable (removable, like watercolor).