Medium Hunt

Finding a new medium is always inspiring and a trip to an art supply store is my favorite thing.
Among other places in San Francisco, I'm a big fan of FLAX. For some reason I've been thinking that the location isn't convenient, may be it's because of the highway nearby. Early this year, when I actually drove to the store,I found that it is much closer than I thought and they even have the free parking lot in the back. I almost took the oath of loyalty that day and since then, I'm getting lots of helpful tools and materials from that store.The other day I was seduced by one 'Try Me' sign there.

 It was the 'Water Color Graphite'. It was a graphite block in a lip balm sized can. You can use it with wet brush, it almost felt like using a Chinese ink brush painting or the cake eye liner. I was excited, I tried it on the try notepad on the side. My bird is tweeting in the forest of other's try doodles.

I expected it to be really erasable like other graphite media. To my disappointment, it wasn't dramatically erasable, still I could lighten it up a bit. When I came home, I tried this new material right away. I started from a girl's face with a bang hair like me, then added other animal friends. 

This medium enables wide range in value, I loved the subtlety of it. When I was done with the drawing, I added a slight red wash then scanned and did other elements in photoshop. I posted this on Facebook on one rainy morning, wishing a warmer weather. To my surprise, rain really went away!