Landscapes in Colored Pencil

I see a lot of colored pencil drawings/painting both from artists friends here and others that I have made through the internet. Most are beautiful and most are of single subjects, still lifes or portraits. Few are landscapes in the tradition of the masters.

Color pencil simply seems to lend itself to find detail of a single subject. A flower a beloved pet or the arrangement of objects.

Doing a landscape in colored pencil is less common.

Most I do single subjects in colored pencil. I seldom construct a complete picture, something with a background, mid-ground and foreground. I have to wonder why.

I am working on a landscape in colored pencil right now. It is of a scene in Brook-green gardens, a public garden in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It is giving me fits. I am simply not used to working on a complete painting in colored pencil.

But I am finding that I must approach it as I would an oil painting. Even the way I hold the pencils is more like a paint brush, less like a standard pencil. So I am making brushstrokes with my pencils. Blending the colors as I would paint on a canvas.

Are you afraid of the darks?

 

Sometimes it can be intimidating to lay down that really dark layer. Afraid to go too dark. Even when you know, when all your artistic senses tell you that the dark is correct. It still can be difficult to commit to that rich full dark pigment.

 

While I don’t have as much trouble with this when I paint with oils, with colored pencil or any medium that you work light to dark I have trouble laying down the darkest colors. Without these rich tones however, you lighter hues just are not as rich and full as they need to be. With the truly well developed darks the entire piece will be flattened, monotoned and uninteresting. Unfullfilling. Without the darks the lights lack sparkle.