Colored Pencil Week Two

This week we spoke about the work on the homework wall, discussing the differences experienced between the rough and smooth sides of Bristol Board.

 Warm ups were done drawing the bouquet of daffodils on the table, as well as selections from the food magazine Edibles.

The second chart was made using a tonal technique: holding the pencil flat with a simple up and down stroke, a value chart was created. Keeping to a light pressure, color was applied into each square one more time than the previous square. At the end, gaps were filled in by applying pressure equal to the value of that square. This is tricky business and needs a lot of experience to perfect.

The homework is thumbnails of skies using the descriptions in the hand-out:

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Chapter 78 pg. 215 :

There were many skies.

The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but round and billowy on top.

The sky was completely cloudless, of a blue quite shattering to the senses.

The sky was a heavy, suffocating blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain. The sky was thinly overcast.

The sky was dappled with small, white, fleecy clouds.

The sky was streaked with high, thin clouds that looked like a cotton ball stretched apart.

The sky was a featureless milky haze.

The sky was a density of dark and blustery rain clouds that passed without delivering rain.

The sky was painted with a small number of flat clouds that looked like sandbars.

The sky was a mere block to allow a visual effect on the horizon: sunlight flooding the ocean, the vertical edges between light and shadow perfectly distinct.

The sky was a distant black curtain of falling rain.

The sky was many clouds at many levels, some thick and some opaque, others looking like smoke.

Run To The Mountains: The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume One 1939-1941

From Tuesday, February 25, 1941

First it was bright, then an interesting storm with the snow flying parallel to the ground, then bright again with a Rome-Florida-Bermuda sky making holiday all over the sunny hills, and small orange clouds, dazzling with a kind of light and lovely fire hung in the sky like clouds in a Giovanni Bellini picture, and the whole business was gayer than any worlds fair I ever heard of.

Now the sun was below the hills, but the sky was the cleanest and clearest blue you ever saw and in it a couple of light, fiery clouds, like in Bellini’s pictures again.

The Study for the Week is Sanibel Sunset  employing both Linear and Tonal Techniques:

Remember to click on the image to enlarge it. Happy Painting!

Colored Pencil Week One

After eighteen weeks of drawing we decided to add the dimension of color with Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils. The first steps in the medium were how to sharpen the pencils evaluating the use of the electric pencil sharpener and a brass, hand held sharpener. Watching the electric sharpener chew up my indigo pencil was enough to convince us to take the longer, safer route with a hand held sharpener.

Next, we rearranged our 24 pencil sets, cooler tones before warmer of the same color, sticking with our Impressionist palette of yellow, red, blue, violet, green, brown, white and black.

 The next step was to practice some pencil techniques holding the pencil with a traditional underhand grip. Once we had a few linear techniques under our belts, we proceeded to draw a red onion from observation.

Taking time to lightly lay in color using linear technique and not rushing the application, beautiful drawings were completed. Below, my demonstrated drawing:

The onions themselves will be sliced and placed into the slow cooker with a stick of butter to cook until they are caramelized!