Red Barn (Patreon)

A patron reward for NialloftheNine and this piece ended up being an example of even after you've been doing something for decades it can still surprise you...or throw a monkey wrench into your plans.

       In theory the concept of the piece was straight forward. Do a grey tone colored pencil drawing of Sweet Apple Acres, but make all the apples on the tree and the barn red. Like one of those hand-tinted B/W photos from the 19th century.

      Okay.

       The plan was to lay out the graphite pencil drawing, then go and accent certain details with Sakura Micron pens. Black and Red.... and the red will be a source of drama. Then apply 20% and 50% Warm Grey and Red water-based Tombow Brush Pens. Then apply colored pencil over it and blend this with odorless mineral spirit. This is a technique I've used for decades and I've had no problems. Until now.

       Now if you go to Sakura of America website and look at their page for Micron Pens Link. They say that the pens are waterproof. This information is also printed on the barrels of the pens. Well when I applied the the Tombow over the red Micron pens it suddenly bled and ran all over the place. Nothing horrendous, but areas ended up with large patches of very light red or pink tint.

       Well crap.

       At first I thought maybe I'd been to hasty and had not given the red ink of the Microns time to really dry. Most inks need some time, even if very brief, to properly dry. So I tossed the drawing. Drew the piece again. Did the micron work, but this time I gave it a full hour to dry. That should fix the problem.

      Crap.

      At this point I started testing my other Micron pens. No problem with the other colors. Just the red pens I'd acquired recently. So I got some more Micron pens. No luck. This set off a round of inquires with Sakura Customer Service. Their response was effectively. Yep the red should be waterproof. Always have been. Enjoy our products. Have a nice day. Bye bye!  So I tried again.

     F**K

     So I had to walk away from it while I figure out how to solve problem. Another detail was that I would only be using just greys, white, black, and shades of red in the piece. This meant that the areas of the reds would have a different appearance to my regular colored pencil work. so none of the violets, browns, and yellows and greens I usually use to tint my reds . This would give the piece very different vibe.

     After contemplating my navel for awhile I decided to tackle the piece from different angle. Instead of trying produce a mostly grey drawing with touches of red I would instead do a mostly red drawing with large areas of grey included. So if you look closely at the piece in person you'll find an overall shade of red and pinks in it. Unfortunately my oversize scanner isn't accurate enough to capture some of this details. Suddenly the red bleed areas just vanished into the piece.

    Yay!