Sometimes you gotta do art for your own sanity. That's probably the biggest reason why I draw. Drawing chills me out. It's great for anxiety--except for when it comes to digital art. I don't know if I just have a mental block or what, but drawing digitally is not relaxing for me. It's gotta be traditional or it just doesn't have the same effect. There's something about a pencil scraping across a piece of paper and that delightful texture combination.
My sister got me this lovely brown paper just because she's wonderful (thanks, Tiffany). I've been talking about trying out toned paper for a long time. I've never done it before. I've always had sketchbooks, but they've been of the bleached white paper variety, which worked out fine for me. That paper is plenty adequate for anime and cartoon style drawings (preferred even, I might add, at least in my case).
More recently, I've been playing with colored pencils with a sort of wildlife magical feel. That was why I wanted the brown paper. I dug in pretty quickly when my sister gifted me it. I made time to draw, and it was so worth it. I now only ever want to do this kind of art on toned paper, and the brown is especially nice because of that warmth underneath the drawing.
Here's the first drawing I did with this paper and colored pencils. I couldn't scan it because it was too big for my scanner, but here's a semi-decent picture of it.
I can't wait to do a lot more drawings like this stag and these roses. It's extremely satisfying. And relaxing.
Materials and tools used:
- Strathmore Toned Tan Sketch Paper
- Prismacolor Colored Pencils
- Prismacolor Colorless Blender Pencil
