When I was flipping through Imaginary Friends by Karolina Kubikowska, my eye kept being drawn to this adorable scene, even though I’m positively TERRIFIED of coloring people- I’ve never successfully colored hair or skin before. But as it kept calling to me, I impulsively decided to bite the bullet and tear this page out so I could color it!
This was a first on many fronts: I’d never drawn or colored misty tree silhouettes before, or skies with other colors than blue, or skin. Or hair. I’d also never covered linework with paint pens before. It was so much fun to give all of these things a go, and I’m pretty pleased with how it all turned out!!
I struggled the most with my Derwent Drawing pencils: they’re absolutely gorgeous but sooo buttery smooth that I couldn’t get more than five or six layers down for any object and that made my process of finishing the background quite grueling…. when I got the hang of them, as I was coloring the bricks of the wall, I found that as long as I lay down four layers on top of each other at the very most, my results are the best- and the buttery yet highly pigmented consistency of the pencils makes the laydown in this manner an absolute joy!
I colored the skin with Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer and used Derwent Chromaflow for the hair- and I’m so pleased with this result! As mentioned, it’s my first attempt at skin & hair, and I feel it turned out great! Porcelainy, but not washed out and not too pink either.
All other pencil elements, like the kitty smoke, clothes and autumn leaves were done with Drawing.
Tools used:
- Background pencilwork: Derwent Drawing
- Girl pencil work: Derwent Drawing, Chromaflow and Albrecht Dürer
- Smoke kitty pencil work: Derwent Drawing
- Autumn leaves pencil work: Derwent Drawing
- Other media: Tooli-art paint pens, white gelly roll, Artistro gold paint pen
Art: Imaginary Friends by Karolina Kubikowska