Another of the lovely images posted for the Facebook
Virtual Sketchwalk, a lovely HUGE Golden Buddha,
image shown above tilted as one might have seen it when looking UP!

This one I decided to do over shellac, which changes the
color and texture of the Hahnemühle Watercolour paper.

Above, images of the materials for shellacking the page.
See the post on creating your own pure shellac for this use.

I drew the image in a medium square 7.7″ Hahnemühle Watercolour Journal with 100% cotton 250lb cold pressed paper.  I really love this paper and this journal I am dedicating to Buddha drawings for the next year.

I still love my EF Platinum Carbon pen with Platinum Carbon ink.  It is still my preferred sketching pen and ink!  It is waterPROOF, no moving this ink after it is dry!  BTW, I don’t think this is truly an EF — I have other pens that are EF and this is more like a fine or even just a tqd bigger, but that is okay with me.  If I did not use this ink I would use DeAtrementis Document ink or Super5 ink, both truly waterPROOF.

Note I placed a thin sheet of plastic under the page I wanted to shellac.
If you do not do this the shellac will soak through and stick the pages together, however, once dry, the shellac is stable.

I used my blonde-beige 1lb-cut shellac over the drawing, above.
Between the video and images you can see that there is no rush, just try not to be interrupted if possible, and “paint” the shellac onto the paper in an even manner.

I made sure the layer I used soaked through evenly,
just a second way of making sure that the shellac is even when first trying it.

Note the color differences in the shellac is due to lighting.

I made sure the shellac was thoroughly dry before
using inks and watercolors over the image.

At this point I began creating my image as I might in any page.

I began with both diluted brown and grey inks,
layering them for shadow and to begin adding color.
These are waterproof inks, both from
DeAtramentis Document, Sepia Brown and Grey.

Each layer I let dry, but then they dry quickly!

Finally, I used my watercolor, building layers of color:
details and final image, above.

Image completed!