Colored Pencil Drawing of Magnolia Blossom

Beginning Again

You can see the white outlines on this drawing

Another Magnolia Painting

Starting the third magnolia blossom painting in colored pencil.

Quite a few people have asked how I develop a colored pencil drawing/painting. So I decided to walk you through the steps as I draw this one.

First step is to draw the layout on tracing paper. Why? because it is hard to erase on mat board, also hard to see a drawing on dark mat board and very easy to erase and move things around on tracing paper.

So the layout is done. I don't go into great detail here, just basic shapes, Do I like it? etc.

Inktense pigments have been "floated" into the basic shapes

Then I turn the tracing paper over. On the back I will scribble white colored pencil. When that is one. I will use drafting dots (or artist dots, depending on where to buy them) and fix the tracing paper to where I want it on the board, leaving myself a wide margin. This can be trimmed away when finished, but gives me a place to do any "practice" strokes and color combos if I need to.

With the white side down, I take a fine point pen and gently trace over my drawing, transferring the basic design to the mat board. I know a lot of artist who do this in detail, but I prefer to let the details develop and see what happens.

I always have the detail preliminary drawing to refer back to, but I am not married to it.

With these fine white lines I am ready to beginning building this colored pencil painting. You can see the faint white lines that will become leaves later on in the painting process. I will ignore this for the time being.

With this painting I started with Derwents Inktense drawing pencils. These are water soluble pencils that give good coverage with an ink pigment. A flat watercolor brush and water gets these flowing to give a good base coverage. This layer is pale, it is only the beginning.

Magnolia-Blended, Burnished and Polished

Worked on the white magnolia colored pencils drawing.

Last week I used a solvent, mineral spirits to help blend the layers of pencil into a more smooth value transition. Using a stump rather than a brush, I blended the lighter whites into the darker shadows.

When dry I used both a pencil blender then burnisher.

Finally, I used both a paper towel and soft cloth to polish the drawing until it glowed and looked almost like an oil painting.

This is an un-enhanced photo taken in natural light of the completed drawing/painting.

Color Wheel

 - Julia

 

Julia's Color Wheel.
 

Another student of the Wednesday Open Studio has submitted her color wheel.

 

Rather than the standard color wheel, where you mix paints to achieve the right hues, we took another approach.

 

 The assignment was to make a color wheel using found objects and arranging them on their choice of wheel. The object was to help them learn to judge color, to work with color in a real world situation. The student could use any object(s) to populate his/her wheel. And any round object to put the wheel on. Mix and match was fine. Objects could have a theme or not, as the artist/student choose.

 

Julia finished her wheel, a mix of fabrics, pompoms, marbles and butterflies. She decided to locate the butterflies as compliments of color, adding a nice touch to the wheel.

 

Using And Extending Colored Pencils

 

Here you can see pencil stub and new white pencil

 

Colored pencils are great for artwork. Nice, dry medium and totally portable. But they can be a little pricey. When working on a large piece it is easy to use several pencils of the same color completely.

 



Pencils with paper clip to push together

 

For my large magnolia drawing(s) I have already just about used up 4 white pencils. Right down to the stubs!

Pencils, glue and high-tech tool!

 

Even with a pencil extender, I am running out.

 

To use all of the pencil a small investment in a super-type glue, steady hands ( and to be honest a small amount of nail polish remover! To unstick fingers!)



Joined pencils, see how one is almost used up!

 

And wa la, I can use up all the pencil!

 

I did discover that using a partially unbent paper clip helped me glue the pencils together without gluing my fingers together.



Joined pencils.
Top one just joined, bottom used almost to the nub again!
but I got another 1/2 hours use.



sharpened with a pencil sharpener, They hold just fine!