HS: Can you tell us more about the less time-consuming colored pencil techniques?
BB: There are three very simple techniques that many of my students and I now rely on. The first is to just layer less. Some people seem to enjoy deep layering using as many as a dozen or more separate layers of pencil color to arrive at a new color. I encourage a less ponderous way of gaining color effects, using as few layers as possible. In fact learning to successfully use only partial layers is a real timesaving strategy. This also can serve as a good first step toward more spontaneity.
The second technique is mixing color much as the European Impressionists did. They applied colors side-by-side rather than physically mixing them together on the canvas. Juxtaposing pencil colors in this way keeps color effects from becoming too muddy or too overly drab.
The third technique is to exploit texture. A unique feature of this medium is that we can use almost anything sticky or tacky, such as adhesive tapes or frisket film to lift away color in order to develop textural interest. We can do this cleanly or in a mottled way. When we re-apply new color in these places it then mixes with any residue of the original color, becoming a complexly textured new color passage.
All of these techniques can be combined in use, and will save hours sometimes even days of tedious layering.
HS: You mentioned working professionally. What advice would you have for artists hoping to turn professional at some point? I'm thinking in terms of how to achieve a level of art that would be attractive to a gallery or a publisher.
Bet Borgeson: The first necessity, I think, is to try 'cutting oneself away from the herd.' By this I mean trying as best we can to think for ourselves. Producing gallery or publishing-ready art is seldom a 'group-think' effort.
Good artwork that has presence and commands respect - must be fresh and original, not be merely a novelty. All of which suggests connecting with ideas that are meaningful to us, then communicating these things expressively to others. When a piece of artwork has the capacity to cause a genuine response in others it becomes irresistible. And this I believe is what the world out there really wants.
