Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Underpainting for Cherries

Cherry drawing with colored pencil and mineral spirits
I am working on this 12x12" commissioned drawing for a client who wanted a square format piece of artwork of cherries on a plate. I'm working on cradled Ampersand Gessobord coated with light blue Colourfix primer so the gessoed surface will hold the pencil. I started by transferring a line drawing of my own reference photo onto the surface and next put a light layer of pencil on the cherries and the darkest shadowed areas. I began working the darkest areas with Prismacolor Indanthrone Blue and Tuscan Red in a light layer. Next I added alight layer Crimson Lake, Scarlet Lake, Pale Vermillion and Blush Pink for the lighter areas of the cherries.

Now I am working one cherry at a time, adding odorless mineral spirits with a small, soft flat brush and then more colored pencil over the mineral spirits while it is still wet. When I achieve the density of colors I want, I will move onto the next cherry although when I have completed each one, I will go back and refine areas and colors.

2 comments:

Sue Clinker said...

Thanks for the detailed 'step by step' information explaining how you achieve the depth of colour here.

I intrigued that you use apply pencil whilst the solvent is still wet - doesn't this destroy the pencil 'points'?

Kendra said...

Hi Sue, when I apply the pencil to the wet solvent it does destroy the pencil points, it smushes the points and while you get thick coverage, you use more pencil.