Wednesday, January 7, 2009

January Flower: Carnation WIP Update


I'm still plugging away at this flower. You can see I kinda jump around with the petals, filling in more reds, greens, purples and blues. It looks like I need to darken the background as well.

It's really interesting to see how other colored pencil artists complete their works. Quite a few artists complete sections at a time - so you're slowly getting more and more of the painting, like watching water slowly gliding over a surface after your 2 year old spilled her glass. Very fascinating (the art, not the spilled water...) Other artists work in layers, similar to how I work. Since I started out in watercolors, using glazes of color to build up the painting, I see this as a natural way of building up colored pencil as well. Both are transparent in a way, so that you can see the individual layers as you work. By using blue and yellow to create green creates more depth and visual excitement than if one used green in the beginning.

In the next update (maybe the last??), I will have added more colors to the flower for interest and definitely darkened the background. We'll see!

A lot more work ahead of me, and I wanted to get it done by last weekend! Maybe I can at least have it done by February's reception.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Art&Soul Reception


You are cordially invited to

Art and Soul Studios

Featuring the work of all member artists in a new show:

Resolutions

Opening Reception
Friday, January 9 , 7:00-9:00pm
...
122 West Clay Street, Mebane, NC 27302
919 . 563 . 2300

Sign up for winter classes in color theory, painting, pottery, metal tooling, jewelry and children's art classes

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Carnation Flower: Update


Another update - I'm adding the red (crimson red) to the flower now. I'll have to go back and forth with the colors to keep the values where I want them. After looking at the grey value on this, I want to push the darks more. (That's something I tend to be timid about. I can put them in for my portraits, but not when I switch to colored pencils!)

I'm a little frustrated because my favorite pencil sharpener is at the gallery, so I'm working with a manual and a battery powered pencil sharpener. I guess I sound pretty silly - my husband thinks I have a pencil sharpener fetish. If he could read the art forum posts on supplies, his eyes would glaze over...

For now, I'm stopping here since it's 3:15 am. I'm going to sleep...maybe.

(Oh yeah - better images, right? I ended up scanning it. Forget the camera!)