A Sidestep: From Paint to Colored Pencil

Above:  on the left is the finished drawing, to the right are the art stix and colored pencils.

I often find it is interesting to try similar subject matter in several different media, and I learn something every time I try a different medium - is this able to show another side of this subject? is another medium able to better translate what I am trying to get across? 

Anyway, my Valentine gave me some beautiful colored pencils from Utrecht, and of course I had to try them right away.  I have been working with images of a girl in different states of motion, trying a variety of body positions, colors of her dress and colors of background.

Working with a pencil has SUCH a different feeling than working with a brush.  And, as I have been focusing on the strappo monotypes, which are made of acrylic paint, it has been a little while since I worked with a pencil, much less a whole array of colors. 
So, as I worked, I started to experiment with shading, combining different layers of color, etc. And ways of creating the layers of color.  So different to feel a small point (or even the side of a pencil) rather than the smushy brush at the end of what you are holding.
For the large area of the background, I felt I wanted a more solid color feeling, so I included layers of Prismacolor art stix, which are the shape of conte crayons but made of colored pencil material. In the photo below, you will see that I have added more shading and layers (sorry the light is not the best on the photo above, but you can still get the idea). 
I started to feel it was getting more of the feeling I wanted, as it had felt a bit too flat before. 
I actually don't mind some types of flat, but the word flat can sometimes mean to me more than flat in the physical dimensional sense, rather a flat that means that the piece is lacking the life that I want in it.  And, because I work so much from intuition, sometimes it takes trying a bunch of things before I arrive at the feeling I want.  Whereas, other times it just comes out right. And those times it feels like someone else did it!
So, back to the task at hand. Even with more layers and shading, I still wanted at least some parts of the drawing to look more smushy.  Soooooo, even though the pencils and art stix I used are not "aquarelle pencils", which are the type that blend well when you use a brush with water on them, I did use a brush with water on it on the background.  I kept wanting more of a blend, and wanted to see what would happen, if anything.  You can see in the photo below, especially around her head, the color is more liquidy-looking.  So it did blend things in places. 
And now it does have more of the feeling I was seeking.

 

I'm looking forward to trying some more things with these pencils to see what happens there.  Meanwhile, the strappo monotypes are continuing to be made as well :).