Okay...prismacolours and gamsol...

[Deborah]

So after seeing the amazing colouring on this site, I took the leap and bought oodles of Prismacolour pencils and gamsol. Now....blending...I bought these things called "Blending Tortillons" by Loew-Cornell. They're sort of rolled paper thingies. My question: once the tortillon thing gets messy, do I just sort of unroll the wound paper to get a clean spot? I have blending stumps too...same question...what do I do once the end gets too many colours on it...looks messy...do you sand it off...sharpen it...what?? Can you tell I've never used thee things before??

Thanks for any advice!

Deborah.

[lost luggage]

Hi Deborah- I have a sanding stump thing that I rub the blending stump onto. It cleans off the color and semi sharpens it back up.

[michelle328]

Yep, you can find a little gizmo in the aisle with the stumps/tortillions. It sorta looks like a paint brush handle and has a stack of oh about 1"x2" sand paper. You just rub the tip over the sandpaper till all the gunk is gone. When the sandpaper gets gucked up, just tear it off and use the next one.

HTH
Michelle

[Deborah]

Aaaahhhh! Thanks!

[ranaleigh]

deborah, if you have a fingernail file that you're not using, it works fine too. Just trying to save you a little dough.

[Deborah]

Even better! You'd think I'd know that 'eh?

[aselahop]

Hi Deborah,
I love my Prismacolor pencils and use odorless thinner instead of Gamsol.

What I do with my paper stumps is have one for each color family I use. So I actually never sharpen mine. I don't want the edges to to rough and unravel.(it doesn't take a lot of pressure to move the pigment around on the paper if you are using Prismacolor pencils to color your image.)
I have two types of paper stumps. One's that are made in China and ones that are made in Taiwan. The China ones are harder and the Taiwan ones are softer. People will swear by the Taiwan ones over the China made ones. I find they are different, but they both work just as well for me.

[Deborah]

Thanks so much for the paper stumps primer! I bought the Made in China stumps, and since I really don't have a CLUE yet what I'm doing (lol), they seem to be working well.

I bought Windsor and Newton Sansodor instead of Gamsol, on advice from another friend...and LOVE it! It's just loverly to see those pigments moving around... I'm new to this, can you tell?? I feel a bit like a little kid in grade school with a new coloring book.

[Erin K]

So I looked at my stumps and they are China and I love them. I went to get more and found a new difference to worry over, Some were rolled funny, you could see the paper rolls and they were sorta hollow in the middle I think they were rolled looser, some were super tight and not hallow in the middle at all. So I went back home with nuthing to look at all mine again, I had some of each so I tried them and you want the ones that are rolled super tight, you can barely or not even tell that they are rolled paper. The other ones just fall apart and generally sink.

[Deborah]

So I bought the 48 pencil set, then I decided (a couple of days later) that I "needed" the 120 pencil set. So here's my first effort, using Winsor and Newton Sansodor.

http://stamp-shack.com/photopost/sho...529&ppuser=258

I think I'm liking this technique.

A lot.

Thanks for your inspiration! Please tell me what you think.

Deborah.