colour pencils

Sketchbooks III: Colour play

| Martha Lightfoot

Red and blue

This Summer I’ve been playing around with red and blue together.

It started off when I was camping by the sea in Dorset, with a new sketchbook and a set of Caran d’Ache Neocolour wax pastels. It was the perfect place to try out different blues and reds.

When I got home I started working on a red and blue character.

She’s (loosely) based on a character from a Picture Book idea I’m working on…

…and this is how she ended up!

Sketchbooks II: Drawing Things

| Martha Lightfoot

Drawing Things …

10 minute timed drawing with inks and pencil

Something that’s really helped my creative process recently is doing quick timed drawings of everyday objects.

5 minute drawing putting colour down first, then drawing on top with pencil.

I started doing these at Art Club with The Good Ship Illustration, which is live on Instagram at 8 pm GMT (and it’s free!)

I find that knowing I don’t have long to draw means I can make looser marks, and not worry too much about being accurate.

In my haste to draw quickly, I knocked over some ink – so when it was dry I drew on top of it.

3 minutes negative space drawing

When we started looking at the negative space – the space surrounding the objects – I couldn’t quite see how I could do anything other than follow the outline of the things…

5 minutes, gouache and pencil.

…then I realised that I could add just enough detail to make them things rather than shapes.

There’s something about drawing the same things over again, but differently each time, that’s exciting and relaxing at the same time.

I like working so quickly that I really don’t know how each drawing will turn out!

10 minutes, pastel and pencil.