Happy New Year Everyone!!! I started off the new year with something new. My first alcohol marker and colored pencil drawing. It was tougher than I thought it would be, trying to build colors and the bubbles. I’m pleased with how it turned out. It is on Canson Bristol Vellum paper cut to 8.5 x 11after finished. Used Prismacolor Premier markers and Staedtler colored pencils.
13 Likes
Happy New Year. A good and healthy one. This is great. I love it. Very well done.
Thank you Denise! I hope you have a great new year. Stay health and continue enjoying the Virtual Instructor site. I’ve learned so much from Matt, Ashley, and the community here.
Happy New Year to you too, Ken. Thank you for sharing your first-of the-year artwork. I feel I saw something very nice in the beginning of the new year. It strikes me as a perfect illustration by a professional artist. The accurate shape, fascinating choice of colours, well-balanced combination of the colours and values, everything works so well in harmony. I love the cast shadow includes grey part around the very black part. This is subtle, but very important when drawing cast shadow. And interestingly, this artwork somehow conveys a bit of humor too. I love this work! 
Hi Maki. Thank you very much for the kind words and descript feedback. I have really enjoyed seeing your pen creations and feel this is an honor to get such a critique from you. 
1 Like
My pleasure! I actually check almost all the forum posts and have a lot to say about the artworks shared here, but I need to think about my comments carefully because I am writing them in a foreign language. You may not believe it, but I do type my comments in a word file first as a draft to double check if my comments have any technical errors, i.e. tense, choice of terms, plural vs singular noun etc… When I am a bit unsure with what I am writing, I check online English dictionary. And when I think my comments seem to have no problems, I finally post them here. This takes a lot of time, so I cannot make comments so often. I only try to comment for something I find particularly intriguing. 
2 Likes
The time and effort you put into posting your comments make them that much more meaningful.
1 Like
I love this! Really nice!
You got the glass very realistic. Only thing I’d pick on is shadow is a bit harsh (dark and hard edges) but I don’t know if it was a photo reference or a glass in front of you. Maybe markers will get me back into more colored pencil detail work, I’m too impatient to do anything over 5x7 in pure colored pencil.
Thank you Lori. It was a fun project to do. More challenging than expected. Matt’s video really helped me move forward when I wasn’t sure of what I was doing.
Thanks for the comment. The shadow is the only area I wasn’t as happy with. I might get be able to use some lighter markers to give some variation to it.
The reason I like markers is the same reason I’m wary of them. They need total commitment, though blending with colored pencil is a good use, I blend colored pencil and watercolors and am only now waiting on an el cheapo set of Chinese alcohol markers so I can mess up large areas of my drawing with surprising speed.
Yours isn’t messed up, that would just be a keep in mind for future thing, not a try to fix it thing in my book. looks great otherwise! But if drawing your attention to it, a mid brown fuzzy fade could be a quick colored pencil addition with more control than a marker moving around.
I did a little bit of work on the shadow and also got a little better lighting for this photo. I haven’t used Photoshop, as Matt recommends, yet.
1 Like
That looks good, both the hazing out and the lightening of the really dark spot in the shadow!
You captured the refraction of the glass itself wonderfully.
Thanks for the tip. The rework was quick and really made me like the results more.
wow - that’s so nice you do all of that. I love seeing all the art work you share. you are very talented!
1 Like
This is very well done. I am very impressed with the bubbles! looking forward to seeing more of your art
Thank you! I was surprised to be able to get the bubbles to come together after laying down the dark marker first. I’m looking for another marker project since this one turned out so well. 
There are a couple marker projects in the Getting Sketchy series. I know Matt did a lime slice on green paper really came out amazing, the biplane done just a couple months ago was another opportunity for markers, and if combining with colored pencils, most any subject could be completed quicker with markers combined with colored pencils. I really like multimedia projects, though. Ink and wash, gouache/watercolor and colored pencil, and several other mixes that allow me to cover the large areas quickly then go in and add more detail later. There was also the cafe in the most recent season of Getting Sketchy which was done with only about 4-6 (sort of clashing) colors of markers and started out looking like a disaster then ended up coming together great.
There’s another thread here where a member is drawing Dr Seuss style fun house portraits you might like as well.
Just about anything can be done when combining colored pencils and markers, from simple to quite intricate and vibrant objects like the South American parrots and other birds that cover the whole spectrum with their coloring. Some take them as abstract concepts, some are photorealistic, try a few out and see what happens.
I tend to pick subjects that I like to start with, but not like so much I’ll be bummed out if it turns out crummy. I’d always start with graphite rough layout/sketch no matter the medium, gives me an idea if it will fit and I can get proportions right (biggest difficulty, next to rushing through all of them).
–ETA: Somehow forgot this recent one I enjoyed doing with non-standard markers: Gettin Sketchy - Pineapple with markers - #10 by ThatOtherGuy
Happy New Year @Ken_H ! What a nice challenge to ring the year in! I love the somewhat stylized look of the entire piece from the markers, and you’ve captured the rising action through the glass so nicely!