Using Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush Artist Pens to color my Sketchbook sample for upcoming classes at the Art Center

Using my feathered dragon serpent cover for the sketchbooks that we'll be using in the class and camps starting this week at the Cary Arts Center. Decided to prepare a colored sample to have on hand, so I chose Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush Artist Pens to get the job done in a flash. Their larger brush nibs and juicy pigmented inks can cover smooth card stock pretty quickly and uniformly. The colors remain pretty vibrant since the pigment sits on top of the card stock instead of being absorbed into it like conventional marker inks.

Coloring one of the internal pages printed on 20 lb multipurpose paper was a tad uneven, but still the Pitt inks remain on one side and did not bleed through the sheet.

When held against the light, the image can be seen through the back. Unlike water-based markers, the Pitt pens inks do not seep through and barely cause some warping on the page when applied a bit more heavily. Regular kids markers would saturate the paper with dye ink that would be visible on both sides and even bleed through several pages.

Custom "Thank You" card

Just a quick job I did over the phone. Got the request to sketch a thank you card for someone that had gone above and beyond at work, so the concept is "handsome nerdy" guy that hang the moon in the sky for the thankful recipient. The request was for a black and white illustration after the client couldn't find the exact card she wanted at Hallmark. The line work was drawn with my trusted Sakura Pigma Sensei 06 pen. Since I had many of my coloring tools laid out on my drafting table already, the color version was done for fun. I applied a Copic Sketch marker for the skin tone, Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush artist pens for the clothing and lettering, and a Prismacolor Premier double ended marker for the ground.

The advantage of the pigmented India inks of the Pitt pens is that they do not bleed through the back of the card stock. The alcohol based inks of the Copic Sketch and Prismacolor show through the back of the front of the card. Making custom greeting cards, is a good project for budding artists to exercise their illustration skills and apply their creativity in giving shape to their clients visions. You can have your kids work on birthday cards, thank you notes, and holiday greeting cards on rainy days, so that they do not have to rush through at the last minute.

New Sketchbook and couple of cartoon portraits from private class

Newest sketchbook cover for my upcoming art camps with couple of samples colored with Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush artist pens. Just wanted to have an example of the same image colored with "cool" and "warm" colors for comparison, and the Big brush format allowed me to do just that very quickly.

Got a couple of new students in my private classes. Thus naturally each got a customized cartoon of themselves as examples of how to draw people in my style.

300 post wo-hoo! Free Coloring Sheets of Manga Trading Cards Activity

To celebrate reaching this blogging milestone, I am sharing a couple colored samples (using two of the the coloring-sketch templates posted yesterday) and a 3 coloring sheets of manga-style fantasy Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) that you could use the next time a rainy day keeps the kids indoors.
Forest Guardian colored with Faber Castell Big Brush Artist pens.
Sample cartoon portrait colored with a waterbrush and Faber Castell Albrecht Durer aquarelle sticks.
Instructions: Print any of this fantasy trading card sheets on card stock and color with colored pencils or fine-tip markers. Then cut along the straight lines. Repeat and try different color combinations after reviewing your color theory.
The theme here was elemental or Magical ladies.
Bit of Egyptian inspiration in this set.

Caricature Stand at 2nd annual Mercato Fine Arts Festival - Day 2 Photo Journal

Despite a bit of rain early in the morning and a rather windy start that lead to me stow away the sun umbrella under the table, we enjoyed a fairly nice day on the second day of the Art Festival. Had a pretty good spot between the live music station and the Copper & Hand Blown Glass tent of sculptor John Zidek who also proved to be quite an entertaining neighboor.
Hmm maybe I should reconsider my equipment set up, but it was a good opportunity to test the performance of a wide variety of coloring tools for creating live caricatures. Even remembered to document my favorite colored caricatures with a digital camera.
Again relied on my trusty Sakura Pigma Sensei 0.6 mm and 1.0 mm manga drawing pens to draw all the cartoon portraits of the day.
Colored with Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush Artist pens and Prismacolor Double-Ended Art markers.
Since the selection of markers on hand did not include lighter hues of pink, the Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils came quite handy in laying down subtler tones with more interesting texture. Happy Birthday Bishop!
The cartoon portrait of these siblings should make nice gift for their grandma. My thanks to all the guests that stopped by to get drawn or just say hi.

Caricature Stand and Upcoming ARTSCool 2011 Cartoon Sketching Classes

A few shots of my caricature tent at the 15th Annual Downtown Naples New Year’s Art Fair.We enjoyed a wonderful weather over the weekend. A tad gusty on Saturday. Glad I had brought my packing tape to secure the samples to the table.
Found the experience quite productive and informative regarding the logistics, booth organization, and customer expectations of a caricature artist in Naples downtown area.
For example, we increased visibility of the caricature drawing process by removing the side and rear walls of the tent from Saturday to Sunday.
My tent neighbors: the "Live Art" group. The caricature tent was short on signage and display samples on Saturday.
Had to put together this poster sign to promote my summer classes and showcase the caricature samples to potential customers in a hurry for Sunday. Also handed out lots of Artist Trading Cards (ATC) that doubled as business cards and listed the dates and times for my upcoming ARTScool 2011 classes.
As far as the most frequently used tools: I relied on my trusty Sakura Pigma Sensei 06 and 1.0 mm pens for most of the caricatures.
Dragon Knight caricature colored with Prismacolor Double Ended markers and Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush pens.
Was pleasantly surprised when asked to do a caricature of this cute Maltese dog with a snagle tooth.
Going to have to brush up on my animal anatomy to get faster at my pet cartooning. Had a couple of surprise visitors from the other coast.
Two other satisfied customers with their fantasy caricatures at the New Year's Art Fair: Fairy Mermaid and Ninja Mermaid.Camila coloring her picture with Crayola Super Tip markers. Nicole also colored her Ninja Mermaid and fire-breathing fish sidekick.My Cartoon Sketching classes for the kids summer Art Camp ARTScool 2011 at The von Liebig Art Center will be on June 13-17, July 11-15, and August 1-5.

Mini Comics Fever

While I relied on this quick paper model from Glen to start making some mini comics for my cartooning class, you could check this video if you need further guidance on how to make the actual folds and single cut to create a 6-pages + front and back cover mini comic booklet out of a single sheet of paper. The neat thing about this simple Kirigami activity is that all you need is paper, scissors, and something to draw and color your story. No staples nor glue are needed to hold it together.
The mini comics are fairly close in size to the Artist Trading Cards (ATC) format.
Used the Sakura Pigma Sensei 0.4 and 0.6 mm pens to illustrate these mini comics.The goal here was to reinforce the concepts discussed during class, and to serve as a reminder to continue practicing.Quick rundown of popular manga genres appropriate for the students' age group.Kaiju (Strange Beast) pocket guide.The purpose of this mini comic was to illustrate how sketching and drawing can help students in learning scientific material.
Once an original was drawn, it was scanned and printed to try different coloring approaches for the cover. For this batch, I used some Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens.
A few mini comics with colored covers to serve as samples for my cartooning class later today.

Canson Fanboy Comic & Manga Trading Cards Review

As I continue to try the pre-made Artist Trading Cards (ATC) blank packs available commercially, I picked up a couple of Canson Fanboy Comic & Manga Trading Cards boxes on my last visit to the Jerry's Artarama store in Miami. Each box contains 20 cards (2.5" x 3.5" 150 lb/250 gsm acid free paper) with their protective sleeves.
A two-sided instructional sheet is included in each box. One side is printed in French and the other in English. It is more of a quick primer and a bit of inspiration to get a budding manga artist started.
The front and back of each card is printed with non-repro blue grids for framing miniature art and recording the name of the artist and contact info.
Used the Prismacolor Archival Illustration Markers with a chisel, 03, and 005 nibs to ink a ninja character on the blank Canson Fanboy manga card. For a tighter cleaner image, it would be better to draw the coloring outline first with pencil, ink it, and then erase any remaining pencil marks that are still visible.
The Prismacolor 005 pen nib is quite delicate and bends rather easily under my normal drawing pressure. Thus, I had to periodically rotate the pen to bend it back to its original shape. I should probably stick to the 03 nib as my smallest regular pen nib, but all of them feature a steady ink flow and smooth performance on all the ATC stock tested. Even the bent nib retained its functionality throughout the test, but I would not expect the 005 nib pen to last as long as the larger nibs in the long run. Already decided not to get the 005 eight color set because of this experience.
Couple of finished cards drawn on Canson Fanboy manga paper. Once in its protective plastic sleeve, the card is a tad more difficult to photograph.
Not really happy with how this mermaid card turn out on the Blue Line stock. Yellow was not a particular good choice for rendering shadow areas of skin tones. Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens can be difficult to blend and apply evenly. I actually prefer the uncolored stage of this particular example.Selecting the colors more carefully and working from light to dark hues resulted in the cleaner image of this dragon sketch card drawn on smooth Strathmore 300 Bristol board.
The small size of the ATC format allows for their design and completion in a short time with very few tools almost anywhere. Managed to do a few of these sample cards while waiting at the hospital and auto shop.
Using the thickest pen nib, 08, to outline the figure and separate it from the background more clearly.
Sketching with the Prismacolor Archival Illustration Markers to create waterproof coloring outlines and coloring them with the water-based Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens is a pretty effective combination of art materials.
Finished custom manga set of ATC in their protective sleeves.
The Canson paper readily accepted H and & 7B graphite marks and erased fairly easily without damage to its surface .
A pack of Canson Fanboy Comic & Manga Trading Cards is quite a suitable addition for a field sketching kit. Its compact size and performance works well while on-the-go with a variety of drawing and coloring tools. The box of 20 cards with their sleeves is often priced quite competitively for 2-4 bucks, so it can be a pretty efficient option for when you lack the time to cut your own ATC cards.