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.