Pet Portrait of a Little Yorkie

I’ve been working on this pet portrait of this little Yorkshire Terrier, Barrington. I am using primarily Prismacolor colored pencils and working on Canson Mi-Teintes paper, the color is called Hemp. I use the Mi-Teintes paper on the smoother side, not the textured side which works better when using pastels. 

I always start with the eyes because they’re the most important feature then work to the nose and mouth. Once I have the sparkle in the eyes and the facial features correct, I can start working the rest of the head and body.

Working on the body and all the little strands of fur. I start by adding my white highlights first so I don’t cover over them and then go to the darkest color and place it in the darkest areas of fur. Putting in those values helps me to define the lightest areas and darkest areas of his fur. From there I worked on the gray tones then added the tans and brown. I work one section at a time and then move onto the next section of the fur. For instance, one ear or one leg at a time. 

Barrington’s favorite spot is to sit in the laundry basket so that is how his owners wanted me to draw him. I’m working on the background, adding in the different bits of laundry but have to be careful that all the patterns and textures will detract from the dog. When I finish the background I will go back and make adjustments to the fur, especially around the edges. I may need to intensify some colors to bring him forward, and gray some background colors to make background elements sit back.

These are my color notes on the back of the paper. Colors always look different on a colored background than they do on a white background. It helps me to label the ones I plan to use on the fur, some of the browns and tans are so close in value and color that it’s hard to determine which is which just by picking up the pencil.

 

The Swirl

This is a new piece I just finished titled The Swirl. I had been sketching shells in a small sketchbook and thought I might put several together in one interesting type of still life. I chose and positioned the shells on a white board secured with putty. I drew each one individually. But first I started with an underpainting in Derivan Liquid Pencil diluted with water applied using a small watercolor brush. I worked on Strathmore 500 Series Illustration Board which is very sturdy and could hold the water and liquid graphite pencil without buckling. I worked tones/values in black and white and then layered colored pencil on top of the graphite when it had dried. 

This shell (top) has only two colors of blue applied over the graphite. The liquid graphite underpainting helps me establish tones of gray and characteristics within each shell before adding color. My brush and the tube of liquid pencil is pictured below.

Below is how I worked on the piece, adding all of the underpainting in liquid pencil before adding color. I did skip around a bit to draw different shells. My reason for working with these two mediums is to experiment with combining the mediums and also I have been curious about adding an underpainting to the colored pencil. To draw each shell I used a variety of colored pencils: Prismacolor, Caran d'Ache Luminance, Faber Castell Polychromos and Prismacolor Verithin. 

End of Summer

While sitting on Surfside Beach in Nantucket with friends right after Labor Day two years ago, I took several photos of this scene. It's taken me that amount of time to finally dig out my reference photos, review them and decide on a composition. It's fitting for the time of year and my reflections on summer so I came up with this simple horizontal scene. Just a quiet, end of summer afternoon, two guys on the right looking out at the water and possibly reflecting on the day or on the season. In the middle, the girl holding the surfboard is photographed by her boyfriend with the waves in the background. It's a quiet, tranquil scene. Reminds me of happy days spent at the beach.

This drawing is 9x24" on UArt sanded paper. Same colored pencil techniques as I explained in my Edge of a Dream post.

The Edge of a Dream

The Edge of a Dream is what I've titled my latest colored pencil drawing. I may  have mentioned in previous posts that I love walking on the beach any time of year and taking photos of the surf, the waves breaking on the beach and the clouds. I've worked several drawings of beach scenes from my photos but never incorporated any other subject into the scene.

Subsequently, earlier in the summer my husband and I were invited to a fashion show fundraiser in which we were lucky enough to be seated directly next to the runway. As the models sauntered past I whipped out my little camera and started snapping away, my thoughts of incorporating these tall wiry women and their interesting costumes in some of my artwork. This young woman was exceptionally tall and exceptionally thin and I had been pondering what type of interesting scene I could drop her into. After much thought I pulled out some of my more dramatic beach photos and decided to create a scene in which she is walking along the beach, stormy clouds and colorful waves behind, her skirt flowing in the sand. My intent is to give the the figure and the scene a dream like quality, as I was working I would put myself into the scene, perhaps she is me.

As in my past several drawings, I am using the UArt sanded paper with Polychromos and Prismacolor pencils. The Polychromos pencils blend and sink into the paper when burnished with a bristle brush. The Prismacolors blend also but not quite as well because they are much more waxy. The paper is very textured with distinct horizontal lines and I find that burnishing vertically and horizontally helps blend out those lines. The sanded paper eats up brushes in no time so I purchase cheap, flat bristle brushes and cut the brush hairs to about 1/4" so they will be stiffer and better for burnishing. I enjoy working on the UArt because it takes the colors so quickly, I can achieve deeper values and brighter colors on this sanded surface.

On another note, I am going to be leaving Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, RI at the end of August. I have been at the gallery since 2005 and enjoyed it so much. Spring Bull Gallery is a cooperative gallery  in which the members share in the expenses and duties. I have really enjoyed my past seven years at the gallery and I love the family of artists in the gallery with me. Leaving the gallery is bittersweet, I am sad to go, however new opportunities await and are in the works. Customers are welcome to contact me and see my work at my studio in Middletown, RI.

The Woman in the Window

Time is slipping by all too quickly and I've been spending a lot of time on this drawing while getting a bit anxious as I look at the calendar and realize I only have two months left to prepare for my exhibit at the Providence Art Club. October will be here too soon and I still find myself with several more drawing ideas that I hope to complete.

For this drawing, I chose the photo reference from the seemingly hundreds of photos I took while in Budapest in May. A few of us had just finished coffee one mid afternoon and were walking down a narrow street when a woman walked into a cafe directly in front of us and sat down in the window. The sunlight was falling over the building tops and down at a sideways slant and illuminated her so perfectly. The amazing play of light and dark but also the sense of intimacy of the figure had us photographers were clamoring all over each other to get the perfect shot. And thank goodness this woman didn't turn around, she would have thought we were all nuts jumping over each other pointing cameras in her direction.

Now I have been working on this approximately 24x24" drawing over the past few weeks trying to capture what I saw on the street in Budapest. I've taken out irrelevant details and played up the contrast of lights and darks keeping the surrounding window and broken wall but hoping they won't detract. The surface is UArt 800 grit archival sanded paper which is very textured, lots of texture is still showing through the dark areas. I like this paper because of it's gritty surface, it takes pencil color quickly but the textured lines in the paper can be challenging. I find Polychromos pencils work best and are easily blended or burnished with a bristle brush to smooth out the drawing. But I also like to add Prismacolor pencils which are more distinct and waxy and Prismacolor Verithin which have harder points to fill in small areas.

(My camera has distorted some of the straight lines in this picture of my drawing, the woodwork and trim around the window and wall aren't warped as they appear.)

Beginning and Finishing

I have started a new piece, another drawing of tulips. I seem to be attracted to them lately. This photo I took on my deck of beautiful orange tulips in the blue glass vase. I'm going to add a background which will be a simple band of landscape and a lot of pale blue sky. And once the background is drawn, I will have to readjust color in the tulips so they will come forward. The surface is Rtistx and I am using Prismacolors, Verithins and Lyra Rembrandts.

Here is my paint tube drawing nearly completed. I have stood the drawing up in my studio so I can walk by for the next few days, look at the piece, and decide if it needs anything else. I am usually critical of my own work but I really love this piece and had so much fun portraying the crinkly old tubes of paint.

Splendor

Splendor is the title I chose for my "bowl of cherries" colored pencil piece. I've been working on and off for a month, especially on intricate patterns in the glass dish. As I mentioned previously, I used several brands of pencils; Prismacolor, Derwent Coloursoft, Luminance, Lyra Rembrandt and Prismacolor Verithin. The surface is Rtistx board which is a sanded surface so I began with the Prismacolor and Coloursoft pencils which are softer, especially the reds which are very soft pigment. On top of the softer pencils I filled in the textured surface and burnished with the Lyra Rembrandt pencils and Luminance. I especially liked the Luminance white for burnishing the white patterns in the dish. It was just hard enough and opaque enough to cover the surface perfectly. I used some of the Verithin pencils, especially the Tuscan Red to burnish the dark shadowed area behind the cherries.

I needed to render the cherries in a slightly different way to make them pop off the surface and not compete with the intricate dish pattern so I added solvent to the pencil. By adding solvent I dissolved layers of pencil so that it is applied in a thick layer. When it was dry, I added a top layer of lighter red Prismacolor and Coloursoft pencils to really make those cherries pop.

The finished size is 14x17", varnished and framed without glass in a warm silver frame and linen liner. This piece is going to Bristol Art Gallery for my solo exhibit Eye Candy 2 opening this Saturday, April 9.

Life is Like a Bowl of Cherries ... Or Not

I've been plunged into a situation that was totally unexpected only two months ago. My father was hospitalized for congestive heart failure about 3 weeks ago and while he's back at home now, he needs full time care. I've been living with him for the last two weeks and finding that he not only has heart problems but also memory problems and possibly dementia. I am taking care of his every need, including daily care, coordinating visiting nurses and physical therapy as well as doctor appointments, not to mention the finances and legal things that the artist in me knows little about. This is the second most challenging task I've ever had to do in my life (the first was surviving cancer) and I've had more than one meltdown. As if that wasn't enough, my dad's lady friend died last week so we've dealt with his grief as well as attending the funeral and consoling the family. I am hoping to set up care for my dad within the next week so I can return to teaching my classes and doing my artwork soon. But first I can't wait to just return HOME and sleep in my own BED without having to worry about sleeping with one ear listening to when he wakes up and wanders.

For now I am working on this one colored pencil drawing whenever I have a few hours alone. I should call this piece "My Sanity" because working with my colored pencils is keeping me sane. Right now it looks more like "ghostly" cherries because I am working on the background first. My surface is Rtistx board and I am using a variety of brands of pencils; Prismacolor, Prismacolor Verithin, Derwent Coloursoft, Luminance and Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor pencils. I am not using solvent on the background so I am working first with the Prismacolor Premier Pencils and Derwent Coloursoft and then burnishing with the Lyras and Verithins in order to create a solid surface with none of the textured Rtistx board showing through. I've chosen to render the colorful glass dish and reflection first and when I'm satisfied, I will begin on the cherries. The cherries really have to "pop" off the intricate background so I am waiting until last to tackle them. I will list colors in my next entry.

Tulips Coming to Life

I've been working on this drawing this week and having so much fun with it. As in my last post, I mentioned that I began with the flowers and leaves. I worked them in Prismacolors and Lyra Rembrandts and then added Prismacolor Verithins on top to burnish and fill in areas I wanted to appear solid. I took the original photo on my deck and did not like the background so I played with the image in Photoshop, cut out the vase and tried different backgrounds. It took me several hours of learning how to make it work in Photoshop and choosing a background, but in the end decided on this blue & gray cloudy sky.

I began the background with Periwinkle, Cool Grey 30% and white in the dark and light areas, added solvent and then added several other Cool Greys, Slate Grey, Blue Violet Lake, Imperial Violet, Powder Blue and more white. I blended with the brush and then with my fingers. When I finished the background, I found there was too much of a disparity between the solid paint-like appearance of the sky and the textured pencil application of the flowers. I didn't want to add solvent to the flowers because the solvent sort of mushes the colors together and the petals will lose the transparency of the layers of color showing through each other. So I decided to lightly burnish just about all of the petals and leaves with a colorless blender so that the texture of the board wouldn't show through and they would stand out from the background. It worked and next I am onto the bottom area.