Little One wants to show you her special pink frock today together with her bunny and teddy bear. And on that frock is Hello Kitty! She loves Hello Kitty, and in fact enjoys collecting all the cute stuff from her. One day she’ll show you her collection, but she’s a bit shy! Nevertheless, she is happy to pose with her special dress and favorite toys. So cute! And how could I not drawing about it?
Pencil Sketch
This time, I wanted to give painting a little break and go for coloured pencils for the first time in ages. Proper wax-based pencils were going to be used instead of aquarelle ones for a change. First I made a pencil sketch with graphite pencil on a page of my sketchbook, Strathmore Colored Pencil paper (27.9 x 35.6 cm, 163 gsm). Yes, it’s Little One clutching her kawaii teddy and bunny in her kawaii Hello Kitty dress!
Colouring Away
I dug out my Holbein’s Artist Colored Pencils for this. The set I have comes in a wide range of vibrant shades which is the reason I chose it. Whilst colours from aquarelle pencils are spread with water, one can use solvents for the ordinary wax pencils. I used that for the background mainly; for the sky and grass for instance I would use two shades of blue and green, respectively, and blend them together with some non-odor terpentine. Ditto for the hair but in several shades of brown although I went over them once the turpentine was dry. While turpentine works well, you have to wait till it’s completely dry before working on the area again or even next to it. That could take a while, at least half hour depending on how much used, but it’s worth the wait!
For the rest like the face and dress as well as the stuffed toys, I merely blended the different shades with the pencils themselves. White pencil was used for white areas like the eyes and Hello Kitty to enhance the whiteness. To bring out the glass-like effect of the eyes, it’s best to colour with small thin vertical strokes. The important thing about colouring with pencils, I learned, was to focus on the strokes and direction and decide which goes best for the effect you’re trying to achieve. And here is the end-result! How sweet and kawaii does it all look?
On days I’m not painting but wanting to colour, colouring pencils are great. You can choose to blend with solvents if so desired. Here I was experimenting anyhow and of course wanting to draw something kawaii. I’m well pleased with how it turned out and would like to use coloured pencils more. And I should like to include Hello Kitty more often too!
My Kawaii Quarter 