Playing with Inktense pencils

I bought a box of 12 Derwent Inktense pencils in 2008, but haven't done a lot with them (besides colouring in parts of a Christmas stitchery). I discovered that Eckersleys art shop in Brisbane has the full range of Inktense pencils available to purchase in boxes or individually. So now I have a whole lot of colours! :-) Plus I now have an outliner pencil (dark grey pencil that doesn't react to water) - good to draw the basic design with.

To use these pencils on fabric, you need to use textile medium with them. You can either paint on the textile medium and then draw over with the pencil, or draw with the pencil and then paint over the textile medium. I traced a few leaves and hearts with the outliner and set about colouring them in. Then I used textile medium (1 part medium, 2 parts water) with a fine brush and painted over each coloured area, cleaning the brush in water between each colour. I also did some very fine lines surrounding the leaves, creating a halo, and painted over. Colouring first and then painting with the textile medium keeps the colours lighter, as seen in this photo:

Next I experimented with doing both methods to see the colour difference. The red flower on bottom right was done by painting on the textile medium first, then colouring in with the pencil. Much more intense colour this way. The top left flower was done by colouring first, then painting over with textile medium. The photo on the right shows how the colour intensifies as you paint on the textile medium.

Here is the finished block with the two techniques used. The colours in this block generally are brighter, as more of it was done by painting first.

I think the damp cloth draws more colour out of the pencil as you use it. You do need to be careful that the cloth isn't too wet (esp if you go over your line), as it will bleed into that wet area. I also found it harder to have different strengths of the same colour. eg when colouring in on dry cloth, you can put a heaver concentration of colour in different spots (eg as shadowing), but I couldn't do this with the other method. Of course, it may simply be that this is my first experiement! :-)

It has been decades since I played with colour pencils (except helping little girls to colour in). I really need to play some more.....

View from my room

I'm a member of an online quilting group, Southern Cross Quilters. Recent topics have included the view from your sewing room and thread jars.

My sewing room looks out onto the side of our yard - really the side for the 'out-of-sight' things like the bins and the garden shed. We had started a garden bed but never put any plants into it. The main thing I looked out onto was a topiary fig with a wooden fence beyond. So I was inspired to go to the local nursery and buy a few plants to finish off the garden. So now when I sew during the day, I've got more greenery in my view. :-)

For around twelve months, I've been collecting my threads cut when sewing (hand sewing and machine sewing) and putting them into a big coffee jar. It will take a long time to fill!

I'm also a member of Coorparoo Quilters and I take along hand-sewing for our Tuesday night meetings. I've been working on a series of stitcheries by Robyn Allen Waters - The French Collection. Here are the ones I've finished so far - nearly done on a fourth one. I just fell in love with the designs and the hand-made buttons. We visited French speaking Switzerland last year and saw villages similar to these patterns - entrancing!

Here is the link to the designer:

http://www.orangedaisy.com.au/