# Any other traditional artists out there?



## Coffee Lion (Jun 2, 2016)

A call out to those few traditional artists within this wide sea of digital artists. :'D

 As much as I love digital artwork, I've always been one for traditional medias. I love the feeling of physical paints and inks.  Most of the people around me are digital artists. I enjoy discussing and sharing ideas with them, but I would like to find some other folks out there that use physical media, rather than digital. 

For all those who do use tradition media share with us, what do you use? (acrylics, watercolors, colored pencil, clay, etc) What's your favorite thing about working traditionally? What are your favorite techniques? What inspires you? Feel free to add to this discussion, share your knowledge and inspiration! Also open for those who've never used traditional media, but are interested in learning more about it.


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## glitchology (Jun 2, 2016)

I use pretty much anything, save for clay and acrylics.  My favorites are gouache, watercolor, and oil for paints, though, and graphite/ink for drawing.  Digital media for illustrative purposes confuses the #@$% out of me.  I just started with it, for class, and man... It does have upsides for sure (ease, portability, cleanliness, and not something you "use up"), but I sort of hate it! Maybe that's just because I'm still yet to really figure it out, but it's easier to me to work with my hands with something tangible.  I'm glad to see someone who agrees.  So many of my friends that are digital artists make light fun of me because most of my time spent with a tablet is me cursing at it under my breath... it takes me so long just to do a small drawing.. I give a lot of respect to those that can do it well.


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## Ottoxfur (Jun 2, 2016)

I'm essentially 100% traditional. Pens, markers, pencils. I'm just not too good with digital yet


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 2, 2016)

glitchology said:


> I use pretty much anything, save for clay and acrylics.  My favorites are gouache, watercolor, and oil for paints, though, and graphite/ink for drawing.  Digital media for illustrative purposes confuses the #@$% out of me.  I just started with it, for class, and man... It does have upsides for sure (ease, portability, cleanliness, and not something you "use up"), but I sort of hate it! Maybe that's just because I'm still yet to really figure it out, but it's easier to me to work with my hands with something tangible.  I'm glad to see someone who agrees.  So many of my friends that are digital artists make light fun of me because most of my time spent with a tablet is me cursing at it under my breath... it takes me so long just to do a small drawing.. I give a lot of respect to those that can do it well.



I have yet to try out gouache. It's been recommended by a friend of mine, but I've never actually used them. Still on my to do list. As for oils, I've only ever used them once, a loooong time ago. As I recall, I was quite put out by the experience, because they took so long to dry xD. But then, I was very impatient back then. Perhaps I'll give them another chance in the future, and really put some time down into learning more about them. My personal favorites are acrylics for painting, watercolors and ink for illustration, and pen and ink for drawing. I also play around with mixed media, which is what most of my artwork on my FA page consists of.
Yeah, I know what you mean when it comes to digital :'D. It's very tricky when one isn't used to it. I've gotten better with it over the years, and even enjoy it, but I'll always hold a special affection for traditional media.


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## Yukkie (Jun 2, 2016)

I do both traditional and digital. uwu Only been doing digital for a few months, traditional for four years.

I'm most familiar with simply a pencil and pen (markers if I'm in the mood to color) But I just started doing watercolors, and it is _soooo_ much fun.

And like, music is super inspiring?? You find that one great song and you're just like... "I want to draw how this sounds." LOL

@Coffee Lion What are your favorites???

Edit: Tfw you're late to ask~~


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 2, 2016)

Ottoxfur said:


> I'm essentially 100% traditional. Pens, markers, pencils. I'm just not too good with digital yet


Ohhh~ Markers are fantastic~~~ Love me some Copics and Prismacolors. 
I haven't used mine in such a long time though.


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 2, 2016)

Yukkie said:


> I do both traditional and digital. uwu Only been doing digital for a few months, traditional for four years.
> 
> I'm most familiar with simply a pencil and pen (markers if I'm in the mood to color) But I just started doing watercolors, and it is _soooo_ much fun.
> 
> ...


My personal favorite are a combination of pen & ink and watercolor paints. I've always loved the line and wash style.  
I also really like pure ink drawings, where I'll sketch with my pen and add value with washes of ink. 
My third favorite technique is mixed media, which for me is a combination of watercolors, acrylic, and colored pencils. 
It's good to see someone else enthusiastic about watercolors!  Also, I agree with the music. I usually have to have a playlist going while I draw. Keeps my mind busy and my creativity flowing.


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## SniperCoon2882 (Jun 2, 2016)

I'm relatively new to drawing for practice and improving my skill on a regular basis, but what I've usually done so far is just sketching with pencil and outlining with pen on regular copy paper  Nothing too fancy for me


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 2, 2016)

SniperCoon2882 said:


> I'm relatively new to drawing for practice and improving my skill on a regular basis, but what I've usually done so far is just sketching with pencil and outlining with pen on regular copy paper  Nothing too fancy for me


It's a good start, man.  I'm sure pencil and pen on copy paper is how most of us began. Heck, I _still _draw and doodle on copy paper. Can't go wrong when someone who owns a printing company gives you three huge boxes full of unused computer paper.


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## SniperCoon2882 (Jun 2, 2016)

Coffee Lion said:


> It's a good start, man.  I'm sure pencil and pen on copy paper is how most of us began. Heck, I _still _draw and doodle on copy paper. Can't go wrong when someone who owns a printing company gives you three huge boxes full of unused computer paper.


Aw, I wish that I had access to that much paper! (At least without taking it from my actual printer that needs it )


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## AsheSkyler (Jun 5, 2016)

I work primarily in graphite. Sometimes I'll do colored pencil or pair the two together. I'm dabbling a bit in charcoal and ink. Well, Sharpies. Ink enough for me. And the closest I care to get to wet media. I do not have the patience to be a painter. Watercolors made from watercolor pencils, maybe, but not any other kind of painting.


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## Katriel (Jun 6, 2016)

Heh, I'll enjoy taking back to digital soon as I have the equipment for it ... but traditional is fun too!

I like acrylic and canvas, when I have the workspace for it. For drawings I'm currently using ink pen and watercolor pencils, sometimes with extra colored pencil shading, both normal watercolor and Inktense for less soluble layers. Also like paint watercolor, but I haven't invested as much in that.


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## CanisOvis (Jun 6, 2016)

I love traditional art so much more than digital. I still plan on improving my digital skills but traditional is what suits me best. My favorites are pen and ink along with copic markers, like this: www.furaffinity.net: Honeybee Tattoo Commission by AshuraVieh . I am about to start on a gouache project for a local art gallery on wood paneling and I am excited about it!
As for techniques, well, for sketching, I like throwing down a heck load of graphite to the point that erasing it is kinda like painting if that makes sense? I am not really sure how to explain it. I also like just doing a lot of small hatching for inkwork, not so much cross-hatching. Also doing stuff on tonal paper is amazing and I love being able to add white to stuff instead of it already being there.
I really want to experiment more with oils, watercolours and so forth. I have only recently really been getting into color and it's hard.


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## Fallowfox (Jun 6, 2016)

Do you have a gallery @Coffee Lion ? 
I used to work in traditional media, and still have a lot of traditional media drawings and paintings in my gallery, including the painting in my avatar, but I work digitally now.


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 7, 2016)

Fallowfox said:


> Do you have a gallery @Coffee Lion ?
> I used to work in traditional media, and still have a lot of traditional media drawings and paintings in my gallery, including the painting in my avatar, but I work digitally now.


Yes, I have a gallery on Fur Affinity, and several other places. I found your FA, and your art is beautiful!


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## Luku_Zuku (Jun 7, 2016)

I've been drawing for quite a while, and I'm just barely beginning to scratch the surface of Traditional. Basically, I've literally only done one decent drawing on Photoshop. Otherwise, I've been drawing Traditionally for about 4 years now, and I have lost count how many sketchbooks I've filled...


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 7, 2016)

Katriel said:


> Heh, I'll enjoy taking back to digital soon as I have the equipment for it ... but traditional is fun too!
> 
> I like acrylic and canvas, when I have the workspace for it. For drawings I'm currently using ink pen and watercolor pencils, sometimes with extra colored pencil shading, both normal watercolor and Inktense for less soluble layers. Also like paint watercolor, but I haven't invested as much in that.


Don't think I've heard of Inktense. Is it a brand name? Or a specific kind of medium?


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## Katriel (Jun 7, 2016)

Coffee Lion said:


> Don't think I've heard of Inktense. Is it a brand name? Or a specific kind of medium?



It's a ... specific method of medium done by a specific brand, I suppose, and possibly a trademarked product name? I have only seen it from Derwent. They are fairly bright watercolor-style pencils or blocks that activate with water into ink, rather than watercolor, and after it dries the ink is immune to being reactivated by water.


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 7, 2016)

CanisOvis said:


> I love traditional art so much more than digital. I still plan on improving my digital skills but traditional is what suits me best. My favorites are pen and ink along with copic markers, like this: www.furaffinity.net: Honeybee Tattoo Commission by AshuraVieh . I am about to start on a gouache project for a local art gallery on wood paneling and I am excited about it!
> As for techniques, well, for sketching, I like throwing down a heck load of graphite to the point that erasing it is kinda like painting if that makes sense? I am not really sure how to explain it. I also like just doing a lot of small hatching for inkwork, not so much cross-hatching. Also doing stuff on tonal paper is amazing and I love being able to add white to stuff instead of it already being there.
> I really want to experiment more with oils, watercolours and so forth. I have only recently really been getting into color and it's hard.


Did some poking around your gallery, your style is amazing! As much as I love using pen and ink, I'm still pretty shaky with the whole hatching and cross hatching technique, it's something I've been practicing lately. Usually I just do line and wash without any hatching. I think I know what you mean by "erasing it is kinda like painting", it's like using the smudging from the graphite to your advantage, yeah?


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 7, 2016)

Katriel said:


> It's a ... specific method of medium done by a specific brand, I suppose, and possibly a trademarked product name? I have only seen it from Derwent. They are fairly bright watercolor-style pencils or blocks that activate with water into ink, rather than watercolor, and after it dries the ink is immune to being reactivated by water.


Did a little bit of researching, I may have to check 'em out sometime. c:


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## lyar (Jun 7, 2016)

I suppose I am a traditional artist however, I haven't tested many different types of ink. I kind of just stick to pencil when it comes to paper. Although as of recently I've been painting on wood which somehow brings me happiness. I like wood. I plan to mess with spray paint some time this summer.


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## CanisOvis (Jun 8, 2016)

Coffee Lion said:


> Did some poking around your gallery, your style is amazing! As much as I love using pen and ink, I'm still pretty shaky with the whole hatching and cross hatching technique, it's something I've been practicing lately. Usually I just do line and wash without any hatching. I think I know what you mean by "erasing it is kinda like painting", it's like using the smudging from the graphite to your advantage, yeah?



Ah golly, thanks so much! Your stuff is also amazing and so pretty ahhh. I've been dying to try doing washes. They come out looking so wonderful. And yeah, that is what I meant! It's so fun.


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 8, 2016)

lyar said:


> I suppose I am a traditional artist however, I haven't tested many different types of ink. I kind of just stick to pencil when it comes to paper. Although as of recently I've been painting on wood which somehow brings me happiness. I like wood. I plan to mess with spray paint some time this summer.


Wood painting is awesome! I like getting smooth plywood for my acrylic paintings. I prefer it over canvas. c:
I haven't messed with spray paint since college art club. I hope to get the opportunity again in the future.


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## ShamonCornell (Jun 11, 2016)

I used to be purely traditional, but several things basically put a stop to it:
1.) No art supply stores in Northern Virginia, worth the title
2.) Michaels' selection is crap, A.C. Moore's is WORSE.  And NONE of it is in stock.
3.) Ever since Grumbacher discontinued their artist pen line, I have yet to find a drafting pen with lines as fine as I need, as dark as I need, and with ink as permanent as I need.  I can use any damn 0.5mm HB mechanical pencil, I NEED MY DAMN PENS.
4.) NO scanner will scan colors 100% accurate.  Scanners lit by a fluorescent bar, will eat your blue-green contrasts, while LED systems will eat your yellow-red contrasts.  Give you an example, Minsha's hair in my avatar?  The red lowlights is almost black it's so dark, while the highlights are the brightest, yellowest orange I have.  Otherwise, it would be a single-shaded blob of "red-orange".
5.) Lastly, scanners are too small for my sketchbooks and Bristol boards.  The ones available for most private use, are intended solely to be used as glorified fax machines, or to upload family photos and the like.  As such, images get warped at the edges, light doesn't reach the outsides, and so on.

As such, for me, it's simply no longer tenable to work in traditional media, if I ever want to share my work...outside of the wargaming miniatures I build, paint, and customize.  My markers all have to be gotten online, because Michaels doesn't keep anything in stock.  I have to order canvas frames online, because Michaels doesn't even SELL them anymore, and even then, I have to drastically alter what tools I use and pray to whatever dead gods will listen, that the colors will scan at least CLOSE to how I intend them.


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 12, 2016)

ShamonCornell said:


> I used to be purely traditional, but several things basically put a stop to it:
> 1.) No art supply stores in Northern Virginia, worth the title
> 2.) Michaels' selection is crap, A.C. Moore's is WORSE.  And NONE of it is in stock.
> 3.) Ever since Grumbacher discontinued their artist pen line, I have yet to find a drafting pen with lines as fine as I need, as dark as I need, and with ink as permanent as I need.  I can use any damn 0.5mm HB mechanical pencil, I NEED MY DAMN PENS.
> ...


Yeah, art stores are kind of few and far between, which is why I buy everything online. I recently moved, so I don't have a good art supplies store near by anymore. I miss the convenience of having a store where I could at least buy some nice paint brushes.


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## darien (Jun 12, 2016)

It's been a long time since I've done traditional, but even after the switch to digital, I can't shake the feeling that I was always better with a sketchbook and a no.2 pencil. For me the difficulty with digital seems to be that i can't see what I'm drawing under my stylus and as a result I just  haven't developed the same coordination with a stylus as I have with a pencil. (This was better when i drew on a cheap tablet pc, but still not quite the same) whereas I can't afford to shell out $3000 for a graphics tablet with a screen- it's something I've had to deal with. When I was younger I did try various types of traditional media, including clay, prisma-color markers, charcoal, paints, etc. They each have their merits- and I definitely enjoyed some more than others *cough*paintingsucks*cough*. I may still have some ancient traditional art packed away with a bunch of other paperwork i really don't want to see.

I can't say that getting supplies was ever difficult- It used to be corner stores like CVS and Rite-Aid carried decent materials but you had to go to specialty stores (usually at/near a mall) for the good stuff. In the end- I made the switch to digital for economic reasons, it's just plain cheaper. It's also much easier to fix mistakes (Erasers never really get everything, but they're great for making highlights in pencil-shaded pictures.)


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## ShamonCornell (Jun 12, 2016)

Coffee Lion said:


> Yeah, art stores are kind of few and far between, which is why I buy everything online. I recently moved, so I don't have a good art supplies store near by anymore. I miss the convenience of having a store where I could at least buy some nice paint brushes.


See, the problem with ordering online?  Shipping.  Not just the costs of shipping the marker or two I'd need, or the canvas stretcher set or two at a time, but the TIME.  If I need something, it's because I'm inspired and motivated right THEN...not a week from then, or a month, or whenever the world gives me time to actually work on anything again.

I can wait a week after I order what I'd need that night to have what I need...and then the scanner would make it all pointless by eating all the contrast...or I can scan my ink work, likely as not have to RE-ink digitally, because, again, scanners...and just get the results I intended in the first bloody place.


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## Coffee Lion (Jun 13, 2016)

ShamonCornell said:


> See, the problem with ordering online?  Shipping.  Not just the costs of shipping the marker or two I'd need, or the canvas stretcher set or two at a time, but the TIME.  If I need something, it's because I'm inspired and motivated right THEN...not a week from then, or a month, or whenever the world gives me time to actually work on anything again.
> 
> I can wait a week after I order what I'd need that night to have what I need...and then the scanner would make it all pointless by eating all the contrast...or I can scan my ink work, likely as not have to RE-ink digitally, because, again, scanners...and just get the results I intended in the first bloody place.



Ah yes~ The shipping. Usually what kills my wallet in the end. Oddly enough, I don't mind the wait. The anticipation gets to me a bit, but once I have my supplies I get super hyped and I start experimenting with them almost immediately. Of course, buying one pencil, or one brush, that sort of thing is aggravating. I've actually had to buy a single nib before. All I needed was one nib, but I ended up buying several other things as well to make the shipping cost at least somewhat worth it. 

I understand what you mean by the scanner problems though. I usually have to go on photoshop to fix the colors and contrast to make it match the original. Taking photos is slightly easier, assuming one has a great light source.


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