Colored Pencil never looked so good
Still my favorite, after all these years ✏️💗
Colored pencils, you probably first encountered them coloring as a kid. Charcoal, oil paint, now those are for grown-ups. Colored pencils never quite graduated out of childhood. And yet somehow they remain my favorite medium to work with.
Well Compendium of Colored Pencil just landed and I’m finally united with my fellow colored pencil artists. It’s a beautiful new compilation of artists who use colored pencil as a primary medium, curated by Casey Jex Smith, and my work is featured in it alongside so many artists I admire.
Believe it or not, I picked up the drawing habit back in Industrial Design school, through endless hours of product drafting (if only there was a school for erotic art back then). We would block in the underlying forms with light colors, then define them with darker tones. I took to it naturally, and it carried straight into my figurative work. As you can see, I never really left that style behind.
On the color question, since people always ask: the pink and blue aren’t a gender thing. Pink is for girls and blue is for boys... I know that’s the usual read, but trust me it isn’t what’s happening. I love these colors because they are soft and visually sensual to me. They feel good next to each other, they harmonize so beautifully.
The choice of where to place each one is about how my eyes visually scan. Red is the hotter color, more dominant and activating, so it reads first. Blue is cooler, subdued, and lingers after. Usually I want the female figure to catch the eye first, followed by the blue figure in support, though I've often reversed it, as in the artwork on the left below.
Being included in this book, among these artists, is a real honor. Here are a few of the spreads that inspire me. And lots more to discover inside.
You can grab a copy directly through The Drawing Stall. I’m still trying to hunt down Volume 1, which I missed when it came out, and my guess is this one will go really fast too.
Volume 2 of The Drawing Stall focuses on 70 living artists who use colored pencil as a primary or integral medium in their studio practice. Printed in color, approximately 150 pages.
Cover art by Lynda Wallis. Curation by Casey Jex Smith, founder of @thedrawingstall. Design and layout by Nathan Thomson. Copy editing by Nikole Clayton.
Participating artists:
Abel Burger, Adam Green, Adam Linn, Adèle Aproh, Alanna Hernandez, Alex Kvares, Alexandra Duprez, Alphachanneling, Amalia Angulo, Arthur Devisscher, Aurel Schmidt, Ayumi Bessho, Bette Burgoyne, Brian Stremick, Callan Ponsford, Claire Downes Whitehurst, David Dupuis, David Jien, David Reisman, Davor Gromilović, Dawei Wang, Dina Gostyaeva, Dylan Jones, Elizabeth Shull, Etienne Puaux, Hiromi Nakatsugawa, Jared Freschman, Jason Herr, Joe Sinness, Joey Parlett, John Brooks, John J. O’Connor, June Gutman, Justin Bryan Nelson, K A Bushman, Katarina Riesing, Khaled Chamma, Lachlan Hinwood, Lauren Clay, Linda J Wallis, Madeline Donahue, Margaret Mousseau, Mass Dousseurk, Matt Furie, Matthew Bainbridge, Matthew Craven, Megan Greene, Mila Nowacka, Paqaru, Patricia Paludanus, Paul Windle Wang, Payton McGowen, Petra Rodgers, Rachel Jackson, Rachel Kaye, Robert Pokorny, Samantha Rosenwald, Sarah Grass, Serena Cole, Shea Chang, Sigurður Ámundason, Tia Maria Taylor Berry, Tim Furey, Timothy Wehrle, Tom Jean Webb, Victoria Vinogradova, William J. O’Brien, Yuko Soi, Zachari Logan.