HIMI Jelly Gouache Color Review #4: Jade Green, Grass Green, and Yellow Green

 

This is the fourth in a series of reviews of the individual colors from the HIMI brand 24-color “jelly” gouache paint set. This review will concentrate on the HIMI Jade Green, Grass Green, and Yellow Green jelly gouache paint colors and will also include updates on my Star Trek painting and how my swatch chart is coming along.

Setting aside the mint green grass debacle (see the review of HIMI Gouache color 005 – Pale Green for that https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2023/09/himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-3-pale.html) for a while, I turned back to working on the background of the painting. I needed a line of trees in the background, and so I was looking for a green that was darker but very cool, since cool colors recede.

HIMI Jelly Gouache color no 002 – Jade Green

There was a color in the collection called Jade Green - this is HIMI gouache color 002. It is a very dark color with a very cool cast, kind of like the green version of the Acid Blue that I discussed in a previous post (https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2023/07/himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-white.html). 

As with the other colors, it was very creamy in consistency once I had given it a good stir to get it well-blended. It was very dark, but gouache is easily lightened by diluting it with water or by mixing it with white or lighter colors. Since this was for the background and it's best to work thin-to-thick, I chose to simply dilute with water for the lighter bits. It made a good color for the background trees, so I went ahead and painted in the treeline and then added the Jade Green to my swatch charts.

HIMI Jelly Gouache color no 072 – Grass Green

Now that the trees were established in the background, I went back to working on the grass to complete the background of the picture. The obvious choice at this point was Grass Green, at which I had turned up my nose before. Not surprisingly, it ended up being an appropriate color for the grass, as you can see in this picture.

HIMI Jelly Gouache color no 018 – Yellow Green

I also added the color Yellow Green to highlight the areas where the sun would naturally be striking the grass, so that I could have a nice sunny meadow to compliment my bright blue sky. As you can see from the swatch chart at the top of the page, the Grass Green and the Yellow Green are extremely warm - that is, they have a lot of yellow in them - in contrast to the Jade Green and the Pale Green colors, which are extremely cool, meaning that they have a very blue undertone.

Now the background of the picture is pretty much complete, and I can move along to painting my characters!

For the original post describing the unboxing of the HIMI jelly gouache paint set, go here: https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2023/03/unboxing-himi-jelly-gouache-24-color-set.html

For the first review in the series, go here: https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2023/06/himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-1-sky.html

For regular shenanigans, please follow my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/allsortsofart

What Are the Different Grades of Drawing Pencils, and What Do they Mean?

If you are new to drawing, you may be looking at art supplies and notice that drawing pencils often come in sets that include a range of leads. Usually, these are labeled with H and B along with various numbers. Some brands have other letters, just to make things confusing - for whatever reason, Staedtler uses E. Most lines, however, use the grades you see in the sample chart, above, which can also include F. Don't worry, I will explain what the different grades mean – even the rare ones. 

Basic Info about Drawing Pencil Grades

First things first: a pencil "lead" is a stick of compressed graphite powder, so no worries about being in contact with actual lead. As you draw, you leave a trail of that graphite powder on the surface of the paper. The various pencil grades indicate exactly how much of the powder you will leave, which determines the quality of the mark you make. 

Let's start with the letters: H stands for H and B stands for soft (yeah, I know – maybe it would help to think of the softness of a baby or a bunny). HB is in the middle, and then you go up the numbers to the hardest and softest leads. The hard leads make a lighter mark that is more precise (because less graphite is being deposited) and the softer leads leave a darker, less-defined line, because more of the soft graphite particles are being shed onto the paper surface. The higher the number, the more of this characteristic there is: an 8B is loads darker and smeary that a 2B, and as expected, an 8H is harder and more precise than a 2H (you may notice that there's no 1H or 1B – those are just H and B). 

As for the one-offs, F stands for either Firm or Fine (as we've learned, a firm lead makes a fine line, so they are essentially interchangeable). As you can see from the above chart, F is in the middle with HB, but is put on the H side. E, in the Staedtler lines, stands for Extra Black (they will sometimes use EE or EB, as well), so it would occupy the spaces after the highest B numbers. 

Fun fact: the "number 2" pencils commonly used in schools are a 2B lead. The reason they are so common is that they are required for the standardized tests we took as kids where you have to darken in an oval for the correct answer. The 2B lead is dark enough to be easily read by the optical scanner that grades the tests, but firm enough so that it doesn't smear into other circles.

The Best Drawing Paper to Use with Drawing Pencils

Anyway, let's talk about that paper surface I mentioned, which is the other part of the equation. If you've ever tried to draw with a pencil on a piece of slick posterboard, you'll have learned you can't get very artistic with it - the slick surface doesn't have enough tooth (texture) to abrade the graphite particles off of the pencil. It's fine - posterboard is designed for ink, which likes a smooth surface to sit on. For pencil drawings, however, you will want a paper surface with some tooth. How much depends on what hardness of pencil. 

If you are using very soft pencils, use a paper with more texture, like pastel/charcoal paper, which is designed to grab those particles and hold them in their nooks and crannies, allowing you to build up layers of tone. For harder pencils, use a smoother surface, so your pencil won't catch or "skip" on the texture.

Tips about Using Different Drawing Pencil Grades

Be aware that the harder the lead, the more it tends to press into the paper. If you are trying to make a fine art drawing, you will be sad, because these teeny little furrows will mess up your flow. If you are making a technical drawing, however, you will be fine, because you will probably be using a hard surface - perhaps vellum - on which to draw, and you will be ruling precise lines that probably won't need to be shaded over or erased. 

Soft leads have their own challenges. The softer the lead, the more it tends to smear – great for blending and building up dark tones; bad for maintaining the cleanliness of you, your clothing, the work surface, etc. Be warned. 

A word of warning about these pencil sets: You might be tempted to mix the different leads in the same drawing, since you have a bunch. Yeah, don't do that. The hard leads have a noticeably "silver" cast, down to a much darker, charcoal-like black for the softest leads. They DON'T look good together. Don't go more than two grades away (say 4/5/6B, for example) if you want your tone to be consistent. Anyway, your really don't need all these different grades, in my opinion: If you want a lighter line, don't press down as much. For a darker line, press harder, thus depositing more graphite. That's how I get the full tonal range with just one grade of pencil. I personally use a regular old #2 mechanical pencil (Papermate Sharpwriter, if you're curious), and I can get a decent tonal range out of it (see my drawing of Tom Cruise below).

Enjoy your journey into the wonderful world of drawing! Drawing is a wonderful baseline skill to develop that will in turn improve your skills as a painter, a printmaker, and a designer or illustrator. I hope my tutorial helped. 

For regular shenanigans, please follow my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/allsortsofart 

Other articles about drawing you might like: 

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2016/02/learning-to-draw-first-step-have-right.html

http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/i-have-been-professional-portrait.html

http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/figure-drawing-101-wacky-secrets-of.html

http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/05/figure-drawing-101-so-you-wanna-be.html 

Image credits: pencil grading chart - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/PencilGradingChart.png

portrait of Tom Cruise – my original art, see copyright notice