Color Stix on a 5" x 7" Red Suede Mat Board

There is not much to say about this guy here.. except that he is an artist.. blah blah blah.  Anyway, the only thing I did differently was my approach.  I started this self portrait by using a colorless blender to sketch my face. Usually, during this process, I would use a graphite pencil for my sketch but I couldn't this time. On suede, the colorless blender creates easily visible lines compared to a traditional graphite sketching pencil. The blender allows for depressions to reflect light that cause highlights that are much easier to decipher. There is one problem though. You must make sure that your blender is clean of other colors. If not, just like the color stix, the blender will leave unwarranted marks within your drawing and it is not very consistent.  Be careful in areas that you plan to leave.. colorless.

After I had my sketch, I used a brush pen to incorporate the darkest darks. I believe that your art teachers and college professors will or have told you that you always want to go light to dark, but this is not always the case. I figured that coloring over marker with wax is a lot easier than coloring over wax with wax.  I have provided a few images that illustrates the drawings progression.  This is the first time I have purposely recorded my progress so I hope it looks good.