Steve Ormerod visits W Yorkshire Local Group

As reported in an earlier post, Steve Ormerod gave a demo at the UKCPS West Yorkshire Local Group in Baildon.

Steve Ormerod prepares to start his demo

Group organiser, Roy Lorrain-Smith, reports:

Twenty members and friends of the West Yorkshire local group had a treat last night (10 November 2010). Coloured pencil artist Steve Ormerod came to Baildon to give a demonstration of his way of working. He brought with him a selection of his completed coloured pencil works and talked about them, explaining how he had achieved various effects -- or where he now feels he went wrong, and how he would tackle such problems now.

He talked about various ranges of coloured pencil, notably Derwent Drawing, Graphitint, Inktense and Coloursoft, showing how he worked with them to achieve many different features, from backgrounds through flesh tones to highlights, and working both dry and wet with all of them (water soluble or not). He did not hesitate to use other media such as pastels with pencils. "I use all sorts of things to get the effects I want," he said. And showed how, with erasers to improve texture, and the wrong end of a paint brush for whiskers -- animal or human. We could also see that one at least of his palettes had been promoted from making ice cubes in someone's freezer, and he revealed that as revenge one of his best watercolour brushes had been briefly commandeered by the pastry cook.

He was informative and witty, and the evening was a great success. We all had great fun.