Not too sure about the hair: OR the cross-eyed, metallic man!

I love good advise from people who know what they're talking about. So when a couple of illustrators who really know what they're talking about commented on my Not To Sure About The Hair post, suggesting that I try Lyra/Rembrandt oil-based pencils, I was on a mission to do just that!

My village is too small to have an art supply store, but after the dentist chair yesterday, I skipped into the art supply store in Saratoga Springs, thinking to treat myself to a few of those pencils. Kind of like when Mom used to treat me to a clam roll at Howard Johnson's after the dentist, a couple of million years ago.

The pencil section was hip-deep in watercolor pencils, with nary an oil-based stick in sight. Nuts!

Back home, I double-checked my colored pencil stash. Water-soluble...water-soluble...water soluble...and AHA! a set of Lyra "Super Ferby" totally fat, metallic colors colored pencils! They didn't claim to be "oil-based," but "long-wearing" and "non-soluble" kind of sounded like "oil-based" to me. Yahoo!

There were a few drawbacks. 
1. The colors ran the spectrum all the way from pastel this to pastel that;
2. The values ranged from light to light;
3. The leads are about a centimeter wide, meant for little kids, I suppose. They are really CHUNKY pencils, and hard to see exactly where the point is hitting on the paper, when in use. 

I chose a light red for the darks and a silver for the whites (which pretty completely matched the color of the gray paper I chose to draw on.)



And yes, he's not only made of metallic colors and identical values, he's also been drawn cross-eyed. Sorry, Fella!

I think I'll be placing an order with Blick. In the mean time, watch for my next study, metallics on white paper. The "Ferby" leads were smooth and soft and left a luscious line.

Side Note on the Side Bar Boxes: With the happy distraction of the wedding out of the way, I did manage to upload my novel, Kismet, to Barnes & Noble for you to purchase for your Nook. Of course, I have the book on  my desktop computer, but I may download it to read on my Nook, just for the fun of it. Humor, history, romance, mystery and  adventure, all for only 99 cents!

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