September 2019 Challenge: Beyond the Sidewalks

[bkh1914]

This challenge really appealed to me - I could map something I knew about.

Fall is the season of changing colors.
But more importantly, it is the harvest season,
the time to harvest crops and store food for the winter.

Yesterday I finally started scribbling some ideas on a piece of paper.
My pencil took me in a slightly different direction...
The result looked far better than I had expected... maybe if I cleaned it up...

Today I redrew the map on a better piece of paper:

### Latest WIP ###
Sketch 2b.jpg

0.5mm pencil on light card stock.

I hope I don't mess it up when I start inking it
and that the pencil lines erase cleanly.

I want to do a traditional media entry this time.

[Bogie]

That's a great start. I agree, September is Apple Picking, Cider doughnuts, Pumpkin Patches, Corn Stalks, Sun Flowers. Lots of good stuff.

[DrWho42]

very nice! reminds me of stardew valley

[bkh1914]

That's a great start. I agree, September is Apple Picking, Cider doughnuts, Pumpkin Patches, Corn Stalks, Sun Flowers. Lots of good stuff.

Thanks Bogie.
Yes, it's a great time of the year. So colorful and so many things to do.

very nice! reminds me of stardew valley

I had to Google that.
Yes, it is the same type of setting and one that I wanted to move to a long time ago (late 1970's).
I still have quite a collection of old books and magazines about it.

[bkh1914]

The map is inked:

### Latest WIP ###
Beyond the Sidewalks 2.jpg

I'm not happy about how the ink bled in the title.
It didn't do that on the test sheet...
I could do the title on another piece of paper and replace it digitally...
... but I'm leaning towards just leaving it as it is.

I'm planning to add the legend and compass before I start coloring it.

For a variety of reasons, my best coloring option is colored pencils.
My colored pencil set dates back to my childhood
and that's the last time I really used them.
And that was a long, long time ago.

[bkh1914]

I finally had time to do some significant work on this yesterday.

I added the legend and compass - my practice copy looks better, but that's life.

Then I started playing around with my colored pencils.
They date back to my youth, but they are artist quality...
I wasn't particularly happy with the color selection.
But the art supply store isn't open on Sunday evening.
I had scanned the map so I could still color it digitally...

So yesterday evening I started scribbling on the map with the pencils.
Three hours later I had some reasonable color on the map.


### Latest WIP ###
Beyond the Sidewalks 3b.jpg


I added a simple border this morning.

I hope the trees are easier to color than the grass was.
(The grass is a combination of four different shades of green.)

[ChickPea]

This is going to be great! Looking forward to seeing the trees coloured.

[bkh1914]

Thanks for the encouragement ChickPea.

And now we have some colored trees!

### Latest WIP ###
Beyond the Sidewalks 4.jpg

I still haven't figured out how to get a good scarlet with my colored pencil set.

Yes, some of the trees are still green and some of them have insipid colors.
That's the way real trees look in my woods...

[Chashio]

That's looking lovely It looks like a very cozy home.

I don't use colored pencils much but maybe you could lightly shave some red powder from the tip and rub it in with a paint brush or q-tip? I also think I saw someone mention that colored pencils can be used wet like watercolor pencils but with alcohol instead of water. But I'd test those techniques on scrap paper first.

[bkh1914]

That's looking lovely It looks like a very cozy home.

I don't use colored pencils much but maybe you could lightly shave some red powder from the tip and rub it in with a paint brush or q-tip? I also think I saw someone mention that colored pencils can be used wet like watercolor pencils but with alcohol instead of water. But I'd test those techniques on scrap paper first.

Yes, it is a cozy homestead in the country.

The colored pencils I'm using can be used with water, either after the color is applied or the pencils can be used on wet paper.
The color is much more intense, more like water colors.
But the paper I used behaves very poorly when it gets wet - it turns to mush.

Next time I'll use watercolor paper.

Edit: I tried using a Q-tip for blending at one point, but it picked up too much of the color and didn't really help.
A piece of Kleenex on my finger worked much better, but my hands are XL...
I had better luck laying down multiple thin layers of color using the side of the pencil.