paint, pastel, paper
I am retaking the beginner’s colored pencil class again as well as a more advanced class offered by the teacher later this month. It’s not a bad thing – it gets me out, I meet up with people I enjoy, practice continues. The teacher and group are both excellent, so why not?
Here, an orange, done with about 5 colors. Pencils are Prismacolor Premier drawn upon Stonehenge Legion 140# watercolor paper.
Busy morning – off to do some New Year celebration luncheoning today! But the paints were out and beckoning for a two-minute sketch.
Happy 2020 to you!
Yesterday’s tulips were accompanied by red and yellow flowers, some negative painting, and color combining. I used reds and yellows (which ones, I forget) and some Pyrrol Orange to make the flowers. Thinking of black-eyed Susans, I used black for the flowers’ centers on the daisy-like ones. What are the red ones? Good question!
What I did here was try to work from large masses of color to details, top to bottom, and having things dry to a certain point before adding more color unless I wanted them to bleed. White space, too, was thought about. Near and far, even with a rather shallow depth of field, was pondered, and the idea was to use cold colors – such a cold yellow or green – to make something recede – and warm colors to bring things forward. Light and dark were also used in an attempt to achieve this effect.
Having photography as a hobby sometimes yields pictures that can be used to create more pictures. I decided to give up the no-lines approach for now (though it is a great exercise to learn how to make shapes – I was just really frustrated by what I was doing), do some pencil roughing, and then work one color area at a time. First the tulips in shades of red, orange, and yellow, mixing some oranges as I went. Next, the greens of leaves and stems, consciously determining the areas to negative paint later on, as for the flower petals. Finally, the bowl. Before the whole was done, I went back to each area and tried to create a sense of depth by deepening other areas and being careful not to touch the areas I had left deliberately white.
After “getting” negative space yesterday, I decided to make a complicated drawing and “work” at negative space. I have orange lilies blooming in pots on the patio every year, and they are brilliantly orange with piles of leaves in all directions. What better source of light and dark, overlaps, medium shades? And in the afternoon sun. So, here you go.
Journey by Paper 