Colorful Candy Apple Drawing!

Here is my most recent drawing, I chose to draw colorful candy apples because I love bright colors especially reds! I worked on Strathmore 500 illustration board using Prismacolor and Caran d'Ache Luminance colored pencils. The drawing is 15x15" and I use my own photo reference. I make lots of candy apples and then photograph them for later use. I would prefer to draw from life but they begin to melt and change color and texture rather quickly. So ... we eat them instead! Feel free to ask questions or comment!

Here are just some of the colored pencils I used. Notice the candy apple surfaces don't look smooth. The texture of the paper is showing though the pencil.

In this photo, I used the small bristle brush to burnish color into the paper and create the smooth surface in the apples. I also used the white colored pencil to burnish the light reflected areas by applying white on top of color.

 

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. 

Balancing My Tea Cups

I haven't been writing on my blog too much lately and mainly because I have been working on my colored pencil drawings and a few other things. Since the Covid began and I found myself spending more time in the studio, I decided to work on a series of drawings using tea cups as my subjects. I am working these drawings where I am stacking tea cups and also another group of drawings where tea cups are reflecting polka dots, linking to a previous post here.

Many of these tea cups belonged to my (late) mother in law who had them displayed on a shelf in her dining room but later on dismantled the display and gave me the cups. I kept them wrapped and tucked away for many years with thoughts of drawing them in colored pencil. My favorite is the Dragon Tea Cup which is at the very top of the above drawing. Over the years I have collected several others including the colorful bull (just below) from Barcelona Spain and the butterfly cup sent to me by a favorite cousin. 

The first drawing A Fresh Start (19x11") was accepted into the Colored Pencil Society of America's 28th Annual International Exhibition (click on the link to see some incredible colored pencil artworks) and sold shortly after the exhibition came on-line. The second drawing (below) Precarious Balance (18x10") was shown at the Providence Art Club Fall Member Exhibit. 

Both drawings were worked on Strathmore Series 500 Illustration board using a mixture Prismacolor, Caran d'Ache Luminance and Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils. The Polychromos are a harder pencil and good for rendering smooth glassy surfaces by filling in the paper's "tooth". Prismacolor and Luminance have such rich color, Luminance being more fade resistant so I tend to use them more. 

Here I go again with a third drawing. This time I attempted to stack nine tea cups and photograph the stack. I use my hot glue gun and fishing line to hold the stack of cups in place. I glued the spools of thread between cups in order to give each one the correct height. As you can see, this group tumbled and I had to superglue one tea cup back together. As I draw, I work from my photos and shortened stacks of two or three cups to get perspective, color and shading. 

This is a quick photo of my start for this drawing, beginning with the top cups. I draw the design and shading on each but I will go back later to adjust and evaluate each cup before the drawing is finished. For this drawing I decided to try Arches Aquarelle Hot Press Watercolor Paper to see how it would compare to the Strathmore Illustration board. 

 

Two Pet Portraits and an Award

These are two 8x10" commissioned pet portraits that I just finished, Bella is on the top and Ruby is below. Both are worked on Ampersand Pastelbord, Bella is on Sand Pastelbord and Ruby is on white Pastelbord tinted with brown tones of watercolor. Both pieces are worked in colored pencil. I have added odorless mineral spirits to the colored pencil to smooth out the texture in the background to compliment the fur textures of the dogs.

I am very excited because my colored pencil piece Seafoam has won the Frank C. Wright Medal of Honor Plus award in the American Artist Professional League's 86th Grand National Exhibition. I was honored to have been accepted to this wonderful exhibition shown at the Salmagundi Club in NYC, now I am doubly honored to have won this award. Seafoam is 16x18" colored pencil on rag illustration board.

Jump Starting My Creativity for the New Year!

While I am still working on the colored pencil piece of the window and also a very new piece of a nest, I've decided to energize my creativity by working on something other than colored pencil drawings. The goal is to jump start my brain into thinking in different modes of creativity and push myself to think in different ways. Where to start? I bought several books on collage, encaustic and mixed media pieces, read and reread parts and thought about how to begin for several weeks. The encaustic equipment is set up in the photo but I've decided to just start with mixed media collage and become familiar with more abstract compositions and layering materials before I start adding the wax into the mix.

I've mentioned in a previous post that I am cleaning out my parents' house (the big dig) and finding all kinds of wonderful old items that have inspired me to put them into a form of artwork. It's been cold and dreary in January but I am having fun in my studio, I've laid out all of my treasures on my work tables. Some of my treasures include old magazines, stamps, my mother's childhood piano music book and of course lots of old photos. Other than the stamps, I am using photocopies of everything in my collages so I don't ruin the original treasures.

Here is another view of my work tables and I'm also playing with folding the pages of books, two are shown on the left. Still deciding if I would consider them finished or add something to them, for now they sit and wait.

 I was inspired by a Western Union telegram my mother received for her birthday years ago. I added it and the backs of old postcards into the background of this piece, then washed with acrylic paint. My mother (photo on the right) loved to write letters and correspond with friends, it was an important part of her life. The most difficult part is composition, how to incorporate the photos and other elements and create an interesting composition without making the piece look like just a lot of scraps glued together. This is my first collage, it's on rag illustration board which buckles a little from the acrylic and gel medium.

My second piece consists of my mothers sheet music in the background and a wedding photo of an unidentified couple in the center. I found this photo among my mother's things and I have no idea who this couple is but what struck me is how young they are and how serious. I've added an old wedding invitation I found written in German and other elements.  This piece is on a canvas panel, I like the texture of the canvas showing through in the background.

New Grouping of Boxes

Started another grouping of my Ocean Life boxes on 5x5" Ampersand Claybord boxes. I have sold several of the last series of boxes and decided to create another series of boxes. Shown here are seven new cover drawings and three new inside drawings. All of the cover drawings are worked on white Stonehenge paper with image transfer and colored pencil. I adhere them to the Claybord surface of the box top with Grafix Double Tack Mounting Film. I like the bottom drawings to be sturdier so I use white Strathmore rag illustration board, again with image transfer and colored pencil and glue them onto the bottom. The box top drawings are sprayed with one coat of Krylon UV Resistant Clear, three coats of Krylon Kamar Varnish and then several layers of Golden Polymer Varnish with UVLS to make them smooth and glossy.

In the last series I left the natural wood box sides showing and varnished them for protection. In this series I've decided to experiment with painting the wooden sides or collaging some of the box sides with rice paper. I'll explain that in my next post about the boxes.