I’ve almost finished this drawing of rocks which I have entitled “Fault Line”. As is usually the case with my posts, there are areas that aren’t complete and need more development and tweaking – the two red rocks, the white rock and the broken granite rock.
I’ve already developed my next idea for this rock series and am eager to move along, so I hope to finish this drawing tomorrow.
Wow that was a long break, and believe me, I did not spend all of that time working on this drawing. In fact, I have had very little work time lately, and none at all this past week. This drawing is basically finished; and as always, I will probably go back and tweak some areas for a day or so. I like the way it came out, especially the light filtering through the glass vase, and the colors. It was also a lot of fun to switch back and forth between colored pencils and Derwent Graphitint pencils. I may try doing a drawing with the Graphitints exclusively at some point in the future.
I have another idea for a drawing of rocks that I will have to play around with and see if I can make it work. I saw such amazing rock cliffs and formations on my recent tour of the Desert Southwest, and I have a vision in my mind that may or may not work!
It has been interesting to use the Derwent Graphitint pencils in combination with regular colored pencils to draw these rocks. The soft tones of the Graphitints lend themselves very nicely to shading stones. At this point, I’m jumping all over the drawing to get an idea of what it will be like, and balancing out the values and space. Nothing is finished yet – the glass vase, stones and bird’s egg, and foreground all need a lot more work.
I’ve started a new drawing experimenting with Derwent Graphitint pencils. I was intrigued by them last winter when I received the Derwent commission to work with their Graphite Collection, thinking they would be interesting to use for a rock drawing. Stones have so many subtle colors in them and lots of grays, and these pencils are graphite with just a tint of color. You can also use them with water to intensify the color. However, since I’m working on Canson Mi-tientes paper I’m forgoing the water, as this paper is not really intended for wet applications. I decided to put the stones in a vase to “contain” them, and added one different element (a bird’s egg) for variety of interest. I like the juxtaposition of the transparent glass with the solid heaviness of the stones. I’m posting a photograph of the set-up, as this time I’m working strictly from life. Often I will set up a still-life right on my drafting table and draw what I see right in front of me.
Other times I will use several source photos and combine them, using certain elements and eliminating others. This was the case in the drawing of the Wellesley Public Library’s fish tank. Below are two of the photographs I resourced from, as well as the finished drawing. You can see that I eliminated most of the fish, and worked to create the composition I wanted – adding in more empty space and using the placement of fish and plants to lead your eye around.
Here is my drawing after another week and a half of work. It looks like I’ve gotten a lot done since my post a week ago, but in reality this is almost two weeks of work. I’m excited that the background is almost done. The plant and rocks on the far right are not complete, and the water needs a bit more work to add in the fuzzy aquarium algae on the inside of the glass. You can see in some places that I’ve added it in. I’m excited to be starting the fish soon, as well as the message tape.
I’m trying out a new idea for this post. Above are four photographs of stages of the next part of this drawing. Each photo represents a different phase in the layering in of base colors and/or water to mix the water colored pencils. The first stage shows the area I’m working on covered completely with yellow ochre, and part of the layering of a pale green over that (on the left side).
The second stage shows the entire area covered with both colors.
The third stage shows the effect of mixing the pencils with water and a brush.
The fourth stage shows the next plant drawn in and mixed with water.
These layers become the base for the dry colored pencil that goes on top. It helps me to complete this type of filling in of a flat color in a large area, cutting down on time spent building up layers of color. The watercolor/pencil wash fills in the grain of the paper and makes working on top of it easier. I’ve finished this area, and will post an update tomorrow of that progress tomorrow.
I’ve started a new colored pencil piece, and I had hoped to have more work done before an initial post, but I’m off on a spur-of-the-moment vacation tomorrow, and didn’t want to go another week or so without any news. This piece is coming from source photographs I took for potential pieces on Wellesley. As you may recall, my last piece was a Wellesley-themed drawing for the Wellesley Society of Artists 75th Anniversary show this spring. This was a close contender for that show, and I decided I liked the humor and whimsy of it enough to do the piece. It’s a view of the fish tank outside the Children’s section of the Wellesley Public Library, and they have this funny sticker on the glass with a request, and all of the fish are glub glubbing looking at you. .. are you being quiet enough? I wished I could have held the “punch line” back until the end, but I was anxious to make sure that the lettering worked and was in place and not going to fade away, so I put it in at the beginning. Oh well, the cat’s out of the bag!
I finished this piece yesterday (actually I have a few places to tweak, like the interfaces between the car and the background). I’m really pleased with it. It’s like a little window into a moment in time, capturing the feeling of living in the town of Wellesley (and hopefully many other places as well!). There were many challenges to the drawing – the color changes in the sky, the trees in silhouette, the wet pavement reflections, the taillights on the SUV – all things I have never drawn before!
I’ve had another full week of work on this drawing, and I really like the way the hard lines of the SUV give contrast to the wispiness of the clouds. And does anyone notice anything unusual about the license plate? This drawing is about 12 x 8 inches in size. I’m off for vacation in a couple of days, so there won’t be an update for a while, but you can think of me down in Tobago, walking the beaches, looking for tropical birds and scuba diving. I can’t recall ever being so eager for a winter break as I am this year!
As I mentioned in a previous post, I am in the process of doing a landscape about Wellesley for the Wellesley Society of Artists 75th Anniversary Exhibition this spring. The first piece I started was a fall view of Rockridge Pond, colored pencil on Colourfix paper. I abandoned the drawing after two days of work, finding the paper too rough to achieve the delicate layering and shadowing of autumn foliage. You can see that drawing below.
The drawing I’m currently doing for this show is a view of the sunset over Route 16/Washington Street. Everyone who lives around here knows how frustrating it is to be stuck in traffic on Rte. 16, trying to get somewhere on time, only to watch the clock tick away as your tires aren’t moving. (In fact, I’ll bet almost every town has a main thoroughfare like it!) I actually set out that day to photograph the town hall or Wellesley Library, but this shot really caught my eye and imagination. It’s colored pencil on Rtistx 320 board, and I find that I can get much finer detail with this than the aforementioned paper.
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