Colour Media Evaluation

I have taken some time to play about with the colour media and I tried pastels, oil pastels, water colour pencils, fibre tipped pens, coloured inks and coloured pencils.  I enjoyed playing around with the inks as you can use anything to make a mark with.  It works well with linear drawing, stippling and cross hatching comes into its own with ink. You are limited to the type of paper you can use and smooth cartridge seems to be the preference.  Ink is versatile and initially I thought that it was for small detailed work but recently I saw someone using ink on A1 paper using sponges reeds and brushes.  This is something I will have a go at myself in the future.
Oil pastels I found the hardest to use and I used sennelier pastel which are very soft but blend well.  It is like painting with lipsticks and I found that it was very difficult to do detailed work.  I liked the vibrancy of the colour and I enjoyed the blending, this particular make of pastel moves around nicely when there are enough layers on.  The paper I like with pastel is pastelmat and this works well with soft pastels.
Soft pastels, pastel pencils and pastel sticks are very versatile and using the pencils allow detailed work to be done. Large works can be done and you can vary the texture to a soft smooth look to sharp and defined.  Mistakes can be rectified and it does rub out to a degree as the support is quite robust.  The pastels can be layered with different colours underneath.  Problems with pastel is that it rubs off easily and needs to be fixed and the fixative tends to flatten the colours a bit.
Coloured pencil are ideal for detailed work, but preparation in colour choice is essential as once the colour is on the paper it is difficult to lift off.  It is also a very time consuming medium and it is important to know whether to blend or not.
I liked the fibre tipped pens very handy for drawing outside, the line is consistant which is not so interesting as using a dipping pen where you can get more random line.  Good for bold statements and it encourages you to doodle and be freer in mark marking.
Water colour pencils I found quite hard to use.  They are good for out door use and can be used dry or wet.  I found that the colour once wet doesn't move about much so you have to be very careful where you apply it.  It is good for botanical and animal painting and you can go over the top of it and add more colour.