I am passionate about German Shepherds so I thought I'd have some fun and do a series of whimsical drawings of German Shepherds in various Occupations/Hobbies to test my "go to" pencils, Faber-Castell Polychromos and Caran d'Ache Pablos and Luminance,with several different papers.
I hope you enjoy them!
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The Footballer and his Team
I used Fabriano Studio 300gm hot-pressed watercolour paper for this drawing. The paper is a decent thickness and sturdy. The pencils worked well on this paper but the colours looked rather dull. The paper took plenty of layers and evntually less absorption occurred and the colours improved.
The paper worked very well with erasers, Derwent electric, and Tombow, as well as Mars. I enjoyed using the paper. Fabriano papers tend to be well made, though recently some artists have complained the quality has dropped. So far the Artistico paper has given better results.
The Tennis Pro
I used Arches 300gm smooth paper for this drawing. The pencils worked beautifully on the Arches paper which is a cream coloured, sturdy paper. Some colours went down less smoothly than others, but that often happens with particular colours and some pencil brands. In this case the greens and yellows were less even. The paper took plenty of layers and the colours remained vibrant with less absorption of black than on the other papers so far.
The paper worked well with erasers, Derwent electric, and Tombow, as well as Mars. I was really pleased with the way this paper worked with my normal pencils and would recommend it for coloured pencils.
The Author
I used Winsor & Newton 300gm hot-pressed paper for this drawing. The pencils went down well for the most part, and took a reasonable number of layers, but after about 5 layers there was wax build up occurring. Colours were less vibrant, as the paper seemed to absorb more colour, so the overall effect was rather dull. The coverage wasn't even and if you look closely you can see the blocks of colour don't look smooth and quite patchy.
The paper worked fairly well with erasers, Derwent electric, and Tombow, as well as Mars. Blending was so-so. Obviously this paper is meant for watercolour use, but coloured pencil artists have few dedicated papers for their use. I wouldn't recommend this fro regular coloured pencil use.
The Coloured Pencil Artist
I used Caballo 109 satin surface paper from Spain for this drawing. Pablo Martin uses this as his primary choice of paper to produce his amazing drawings, so I was keen to see how it performed.
The pencils glided across the paper, so smoothly! There was plenty of tooth to work with and my impression was very favourable. I have some 109 paper with a rougher texture and will use that on another drawing later on. It worked well with most colours and colours stayed vibrant.
It worked well with several different erasers, standard graphite, including Derwent electric,Tombow mono,and Mars erasers. Definitely can recommend this paer with coloured pencils
The Gardener and Helpers
I used Fabriano Artistico Studio paper for thie drrawing and was very pleased with the way it worked with my pencils. It has good amount of tooth and took plenty of layers and the colours stayed quite vibrant. Some papers seem to absorb more colour than others resulting a dull colour, but this worked well. Colours layered well and it worked fine with several different erasers, including standard graphite,Derwent electric,Tombow mono and Mars erasers. Less smooth an application compared to the Caballo 109, but very good. I would recommend this paper.