Friday, February 28, 2020

Thoughts on Prismacolor

Helleborus x ballardiae 'Pink Frost'


This week, one of our class assignments involved a colored pencil plant portrait. The original request was for a rose, plant and all, but growing roses are in short supply in a Pacific Northwest February. I really didn't like the idea of using a de-prickled florist's rose, so I found a nice blooming hellebore instead.

Hellebore (also called Lenten rose, among others things) is one of my favorite plants. We never had them back in the South, and maybe that's one reason I'm so taken with them. In the middle of winter, when nothing much is happening in the garden, here come the hellebores. Their colors are so unique, so minor-key: greenish purples, reddish-grays, greenish-whites. It doesn't hurt that there's so much lore surrounding the hellebore; their ethnobotanical history stretches back for centuries and spans multiple continents.


Capturing the full range of color was a real challenge. I'm not sure I could've done better with watercolor, or any other medium. Possibly a strong, expressionistic oil in bold strange tones? But the colored pencil did okay with the tonal range, especially the purplish-browns. The greens suffered, I think.

In fact, the whole painting isn't as strong as I'd like. Hellebores are so tough and have such a leathery, sculptural presence; colored pencil has always seemed to me a bit too delicate for many subjects, and this is one of them. It's a bit saccharine for a flower once described thusly (Quoted from theGoGardenNow blog):

"Sydney Dobell (1824-1874), in Balder, mused of 'hellebore, like a girl-murderess, green-eyed & sick with jealousy, & white with wintry thoughts of poison.'" 

I was warned that hellebore is nearly impossible to cut and paint, since it withers almost immediately. So I found an amazing potted specimen at the nursery down the road and now I'll have another of these beauties for the yard.

I used both Prismacolor and Faber-Castell Polychromos on 11 x 17 Arches hot press watercolor paper. I've made the mistake of using watercolor paper with colored pencil before, and it was a mistake again this time too. Perhaps it's the sizing, but the colored pencil tends to "bead up" or ball up, making little spots of waxy color that are nearly impossible to eradicate. I don't have this trouble on Bristol or other illustration boards.

Using a lot of pressure, assorted stiff tortillons, and nearly an entire colorless blender, I managed to smooth and mix the pigment. Maybe I'll remember next time and just get out the Bristol. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than Arches anyway. 

I have a feeling I'll be revisiting Helleborus again. It probably won't be this year, since these guys are starting to edge past their peak bloom season even now. I'll miss them, green-eyed thoughts and all.




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