Pre-Apple

Interrupting the stream of apple sketches (there are several more pencil reviews in queue), here is a sketch of a wild apple blossom. As I passed over the foot bridge on my way to the library last week, I was startled to see unexpected blooms below me. Proof that spring is here, a young seedling apple is blooming creek-side below the bridge.

02/26/2020 Blooming apple seedling under the Poway Creek footbridge.

This is the first volunteer fruit tree I have seen in the creek bed. It is growing amidst a riot of other plants, most notably some kind of honeysuckle. I don't know which variety of honeysuckle this is, but (along with fennel) it seems to be taking over the creek area.

Apple blossom with CdA SupracolorI pencils.
Pigments were waterbrush activated.
Background was added with a waterbrush
 and Monteverde Malachite Green ink.

I did this sketch from a photo, using the Caran D'Ache SupracolorI set that I reviewed in the last post.
I wanted to see if these hard pencils would put down enough pigment to make a good sketch on their own. I wasn't impressed.

Apple blossom sketch with F-C Albrecht Durer
and Kimberly watercolor pencils on top.
Water activated with a waterbrush.

Then I went over the sketch with other pencils, mostly F-C Albrecht Durer, but the brightest pink I found was from my General's Kimberly watercolor pencil set. In comparison, does it look better with the more pigmented pencils added on top?


I added a close-up of a couple of leaf bundles, just emerging. The shape and serrated edges is what makes me identify this as an apple, although the flowers are impressively large for an apple seedling. I am curious, if it produces fruit this summer, as to what the fruit will look like.

Photo close-up of blossoms. Used for the apple blossom sketches.

Supra Apple

In my two previous blog posts I showed what I have been sketching with each of my pencil sets so as to compare apples to apples. First was the Crayola classroom grade pencils compared with artist grade CdA Museum pencils. Next was the apple using Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer artist grade pencils. This post discusses the Caran D'Ache Supracolor II soft pencils.

CdA Supracolor II swatches

Column 1, light pressure

Column 2, heavy pressure

each swatch stroked once with waterbrush

Column 3, waterbrush

stroked over lead and applied to paper

The Supracolor II watercolor pencil line is the next step down in price from CdA Museum Aquarelle pencils. They are still described as professional grade pencils, with a 3.7mm core (lead). The Supracolor II (soft) pencils are listed by Dick Blick as sets or as individual pencils. I bought a set of twelve from eBay for $17. At Dick Blick, the price for a set of 12 is comparable to the price for a 12 set of Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer pencils, although individual pencils are priced differently.  I find most 12 pencil sets to include only one yellow tone, in the  case of Supracolor II that is Canary Yellow, which looks to be a warm tone yellow to me. I bought four individual pencils from Blick to give me more options in primary triads and another green tone.

Comparison of: 

top- CdA Museum Aquarelle

bottom- CdA Supracolor II soft

both color 220, grass green

In the swatches, I included the Grass Green #220 from the CdA Museum Aquarelle pencil, just to get a feel for the increase in pigment laid down by the creamier Museum pencils.

Apple using CdA Supracolor II soft pencils.
Triad used: 025 Canary Yellow, 160 Cobalt Blue, 090 Purple

When sketching the Kanzi apple, I tried to choose my triad based on similarity to the triads I used in the previous sets, a magenta/cyan/yellow triad. In the image at left, above the swatch of the triad, I tested the 160 Cobalt Blue against three red tones from my set to see which combination gave me the clearest purple. All of the choices looked a little off with this set, but I chose 090 purple pencil to represent magenta and 025 Canary yellow. The yellow "lenticles" in the apple were added using Sanford Verithin dry pencil before the watercolor pencil layers were laid down. I used multiple light layers of pencil, usually starting with yellow, then magenta in red areas and blue then magenta then yellow for the stem region.

Apples to Apples:
top, F-C Albrecht Durer
bottom, CdA Supracolor II

I sketched the same apple on the same day using first the Albrecht Durer (top in the image at left), then the Supracolor II pencils (bottom apple). When viewed next to each other, the Albrecht apple is darker in pigment than the Supracolor apple, but both were less intense than the Museum apple. This result corresponds to my tactile impression that the Museum is the creamiest, the Albrecht harder and stickier but still richer in pigment when layered down than the Supracolor II. The cast shadow using the Supra II triad is darker than the Albrecht apple, maybe because of the bluer tone.

You may think I have enough Caran D'Ache watercolor pencils, but oh no! When trolling eBay one day I found a new set of Supracolor I pencils and I couldn't help myself!! But that will wait for another blog post.

The Albrecht Apple

Since I enjoyed comparing apples to apples with my Crayola and Museum pencils, I continued through my pencil collection using the same Kanzi apple. This sketch was done with Faber-Castell (F-C) Albrecht Durer Watercolour Pencils.

The quick take away (in case you don't want to read all my thoughts):

• Soft, creamy, heavy pigments with large cores (but not as soft as Caran D'Ache [CdA] Museum pencils)
• Great artist grade pencils, a little less pricey than CdA Museum pencils
• Fine details in watercolor pencil sketches can be retained by using hard, dry colored pencil under the watercolor pencil.
• Beware of auction fever when bidding in an online auction 

F-C Albrecht Durer are considered top tier artist grade colored pencils. What that means is I should expect more pigment, creamier application, and better light fastness. I'm not really concerned about lightfastness, how much the colors fade when exposed to light, as I am not displaying my sketches. These pencils have a hexagonal barrel that is painted to match the lead color. The barrel and leads are larger diameter than the average pencil, I have to move up one hole on my manual rotary Titanium pencil sharpener to fit the barrel in the sharpener.

Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils
Primary triad: Middle Purple Pink; Light Ultramarine; Chromium Yellow

The 3.8mm leads compare in size to the leads in the CdA Museum Aquarelle pencils. You might not think that extra 0.5mm diameter, when compared to a 3.3mm lead as in Crayola colored pencils, would make a big difference in color application. It does when the lead is soft and creamy because a larger amount of color can be quickly transferred to the paper. However, if fine detail is needed, a harder and smaller diameter lead works better than a big creamy lead. In comparing this sketch to the quick sketch I did with CdA Museum pencils, this sketch appears have sharper edges, more detail. That is expected, as the Albrecht Durer pencils are a little harder and retain their points longer than the Museum pencils. I also felt a little more "drag" when applying.

I received one F-C AD pencil in a gift box from my favorite enabler (you know who you are!) and I liked the strong pigment and the feel of the bigger barrel. So I got excited to see a used 36 pencil set in an online auction from shopgoodwill.com. This was a classic example of auction fever on my part. I calculated the cost of my bid based on what individual pencils would cost me from Blick but didn't look at the price for a set. Duh! I ended up paying the same price for a set of lightly used pencils at auction that I would have paid for a new set at Dick Blick art supplies. I'd like to say I will never do that again, but no guarantees.

Swatch test: Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer
watercolour pencils, 36 pencil set (+1)
The shadows on the upper left column are
transfer from swatches on page two.
page one

Swatch test: Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer
watercolour pencils, 36 pencil set (+1)
page two

One advantage to getting a 36 pencil set is I had several choices in yellows, blues, and reds to make up triads. As a comparison with my previous apples, I tried to select three colors closest to Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow (the triad used in printing and recommended by John Muir Laws for nature journaling). Oddly enough, the pencil labeled Magenta did not match as well as Middle Purple Pink. In swatching, Light Ultramarine looked most like Cyan. Cadmium Yellow is a warmer tone than Light Yellow Glaze. I get dizzy thinking of all the primary triads I could test from this set!

Kanzi apple sketched with Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils.
Yellow lenticle spots were added with dry pencil applied before watercolor layers.

The triad swatch shows how much pigment is picked up by the waterbrush and moved to the adjacent paper. I added a technique with this pencil to try to retain in the sketch the tiny yellow lenticles (if that's what they are called) that apples display. Somewhere it was suggested to use a dry pencil to lay down fine details in a sketch before using watercolor pencils for the color. The watercolor pencils will not cover up the waxy dry pencil marks, especially after water activating. I used a vintage Sanford Verithin pencil in Canary Yellow to get the tiny yellow dots to show. After applying several layers with the watercolour pencils, I used a Pentel waterbrush to lightly stroke the apple, which brightened and blended the color. The lenticles were visible before water activation, and more so afterwards.

The cast shadow looks too yellow to me, from the experience I've gained in sketching more apples it would have been more balanced if I had followed with another layer of blue, then red.

Next in the comparison is a set of Caran D'Ache Supracolor II soft pencils. More apples up on top! (a Dr. Seuss book club reference).

No Decaf for YOU

Last week, starting saturday, Poway suffered under a boil-water advisory. The restaurants, coffee shops, and store deli were closed. Water was being distributed by the city at Lake Poway and city hall. I only drink decaf, so the coffee has to have a good flavor. Starbucks long ago drove out the small coffee shops, and I find their coffee to be bitter and burnt tasting. It's funny how I was craving just what I couldn't have.

Top: Bean coffee roastery truck serving
 coffee in front of the Starbucks.
Bottom: Water distribution at city hall
viewed through the legs of the statue titled-
"Seeing" by Johnny Bear Contreras

Monday, I drove around town trying to find a new coffee truck that appeared the previous week in the Von's parking lot, since the usual sources of decaf were closed. I did not find him. On Tuesday I enjoyed a walk around town sketching some of the scenes from the no water experience and came across him in front of, duh!, the closed Starbucks. Brian roasted me half a pound of decaf beans and made me an Americano. Yay!

As I was sketching the water distribution at city hall, a man walked out of the building carrying a clipboard. It was a cool day, but he had a large sweat stain down the back of his shirt. I couldn't help wondering if the stress of the "boil water" was getting to him. I really need practice on human figures, but the sweat stain was easy.

12/03/19 Brontosaurus, the cattail gobbling machine.

A couple times a year, some large and very loud machinery travels down the stream behind my house cutting and grinding up everything that grows in the stream bed (mostly cattails), presumably to ensure flood waters have room to travel through without backing up. It took me a few years to actually see the elusive machine. On my walk I found it parked next to the chewed up stream bed. There are chains revolving around in the arm that shred the plants. It was amusing to find out that the machine is named Brontosaurus.

Technical Difficulties

I have been scanning my sketches on my Brother all-in-one inkjet printer. The printer itself is the most aggravating printer I have ever had, mostly because it eats ink at a rate surpassing any previous inkjet printer I have purchased. It is only a year old, I rarely print and usually in grayscale, but it has had four changes of ink cartridges in that time. I am looking into alternatives. It has been unplugged to prevent the frequent (and creepy) habit of starting itself up and running cleaning/diagnostic procedures.

To replace the scanning function of the unplugged printer, I tried to resurrect an old stand alone scanner that I bought about twelve years ago. At that time, I was running Windows XP on my personal computer. I had some difficulty getting the Canon software to work on my Windows 7 computer, but with the current Windows 10 (one year new) computer the software would not communicate. Enter VueScan software, which is designed to make old scanners run on new computers. Shazzam! (does anyone say that anymore?) The scanner makes some moaning noises, so I don't know how long it will work, but it scanned easily from the get go. VueScan is available as a free trial, but to get rid of the large watermark I had to pay $19.99. Still cheaper than a new scanner.

Scanned with Brother MFC-J480DW at 600dpi

Here are scans of a leaf sketch from first the Brother MFC-J480DW printer, scanned at 600dpi and resized with Paint.

Leaves scanned with CanoScan LiDE 600f
600dpi

Then the same sketch scanned with my CanoScan LiDE 600F, scanned at 600dpi and resized with Paint. I like the latter scan much better! The colors and contrast seem much better to me. Maybe I could get a comparable scan from the printer if I played with the contrast settings, but why bother? I am happy with the improvement. And the scanner powers from my computer's USB port, so I don't have to walk over to the printer every time I want to scan another sketch. I feel like I have reconnected with an old friend. 

The leaves were collected from the street during a walk. They are a reminder of my Michigan roots. The fall colors of the Beech/Maple hardwood forest that I spent most of my life in are unbearably beautiful, but a few trees here in SoCal have good color, if you wait long enough. I don't know what tree the bottom leaf fell from, [Update 02/15/2020 I found the same leaves under a Bradford Pear that is now in bloom. Top leaf is Liquid Amber] although I spotted a half green shrub in a yard nearby. I used my Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils, activated with water after coloring.