Derwent is all about innovation and creativity. These are two things which are really important to crafters, no matter your niche. You need you art materials to be able to meet your needs and to offer solutions to whatever you wish to create. Whether it is crafting or art, every day is different and exciting. Judith; Brand Ambassador for Derwent, has put together a very helpful list of top tips for using Derwent art materials to get the best results!
Tip 1:
All Derwent’s products ‘work nicely’ together, don’t think that you have to only use one of their ranges at one time they all work well together, they all have their perfect partners. You can use water-based pencils underneath wax-based pencils, and inktense pencils underneath
Tip 2
Use Metallic pencils and paints on white to create pretty contemporary shades and subtle shades of shimmering colours, paired with good quality watercolour paper you can create beautiful shimmering paintings in a subtle modern palette. Use on black to create shining metallic sheen perfect for hand lettering and modern calligraphy.
Using Inktense on Fabric
Tip 3
You can use Inktense Pan sets and pencils on fabric. There are a couple of tricks to getting the best out of them on fabric. The best fabrics are light in colour and have a slightly looser weave such as the recyclable tote bags, these make perfect gifts for friends and family.
Prepare by slipping in a plastic flexible cutting mat or a laminated A4 sheet of paper to stop the water and inktense bleeding through the other side. I like to draw out my image or lettering lightly with a hard pencil to make sure my design is going to fit nicely on the bag or fabric. You can also use cotton, silk, wood, in fact any porous material.
Tip 4
When using Inktense on fabric don’t use too much water. You will find that it bleeds on your tight edges and fine details. If you are using pencils draw and shade neatly. Remember that there is a lot of pigment in the pencils. When you wet them, they really come to life and that is when the magic happens. Their vibrant colours are released. Less can often be more! With the palette, really work your water brush into the small individual pans of colour to create a mixture of colour the same consistency of single cream/milk.
Take your time working the colour into the weave of the fabric. It will feel like the brush is dragging, don’t be tempted to squeeze the water brush as there is a valve inside that works on pressure. If you really find that the colour isn’t moving very slightly dip your brush into a little bit of clean water to help spread the pigment.
Inktense can be layered and layered for stunning visual effects. Once dry it creates an ink like stain that is permanent once dry. It is important to wet every bit of pigment. This will make it permanent and to let it dry between applications or changes of colours.
There is also nothing in Inktense that requires heat setting. You do not need to iron it or apply anything over the top. Launder on 30 degrees with mild detergent.
Tip 5
Graphitint is a unique combination of pigment and graphite, you can use the pencils wet or dry in a contemporary colour palette of muted tones. Once you apply water, the pigment comes to life and as a result, the colour becomes brighter and deeper. Create wonderful bright tones perfect for nature studies, landscapes and still-life’s.
You can draw straight on to the paper and then wet the pigment with a wet brush or water brush. This will release the deeper tones in the pigment. You can also create a palette by scribbling patches of colour on to a scrap of paper and ‘lifting’ the colour off with a damp brush and using it as paint.
Tip 6
You can use your eraser as a drawing tool, it isn’t always for removing mistakes. You can use the battery eraser for fine lines and details and also for large areas and highlights. The Derwent battery eraser is a really useful piece of kit to have in your art ‘toolbox’. You can also erase the graphite part of Graphitint pencils for interesting textures.
We hope that this list of top tips has helped to inspire you lovely crafters out there! For more inspiration, top tips, tutorials and more, be sure to visit the Hochanda blog here.