Purely Pencils

Here I sit, Sunday evening, glass of wine in hand, weary but reflecting on a fabulous weekend workshop I was fortunate to attend.

My good friend Gemma Black was hosted by The Calligraphy group at Buderim Craft Cottage and I was able to attend. Not only was it a great chance to catch up with friends, it was one of the best and most inspiring workshops I have done for ages.

I spent lots of time in a reverie, blissfully working my way through pencils, and watercolour pencils and graphite and water soluble graphite, deliciously discovering the things they can do. It was sublime.

I can't process the whole thing just yet, but here are some images of work from the first day.
We worked hard and there was always something go on with, something else to experiment with and try out.  My mind is still buzzing!

Gemma had asked us to bring something from our garden. In a sub-tropical climate like ours there were many beautiful and bight flowers and foliage.  I had asked Gemma on Friday when she popped over, if it was OK if I took some gravel.  We have lots of gravel around our house and it speaks to me more of home than many garden plants. She said yes, so I headed off with my gravel!

We investigated our objects in detail, looking to discover the many colours contained within them. We would then match these to watercolour pencils and do a 7cm x 7cm square letter - mine was G for gravel.

Here is my piece of gravel, my chosen pencils and the letter before it got wet.

Here is my letter after adding water to the watercolour pencils - still with my piece of gravel.

And my swatch - where I tested colours and then chose the ones I would finally use.

I have since rubbed out the pencil lines, but not yet photographed it as a finished piece sorry.

I think my biggest learning from this exercise was how you can't go wrong if you turn to nature for your palette.  Rather than accidentally choosing some random or clashing colours, by following what we found, each and every piece was harmonious and balanced.  A very good lesson!

I then had the most wonderful play with water-soluble graphite pencils - the swirls and the curls and the lovely lovely washes...

The hint of purple is a watercolour pencil.

Again, the pencil marks have been removed but no photographic evidence of that yet!

One of the exercises over the two days was to complete a graphite gradations chart - so we understood what each 'strength' of pencil would achieve.  I was getting a bit tired and wobbly by the time I reached 6B!

One of Gemma's own gs. Sigh.

And a detail.

We did loads more today but that will wait for another day - dinner beckons and an early night.

A huge thank you to the Buderim calligraphers for a fabulous workshop, time spent together and such wonderful sharing and learning. And to Gemma for her skills, knowledge, patience and generosity - I felt like I absorbed so much over the past two days that I'll keep going for weeks and months to come!