Happy New Year

I know I am a little late in the Happy New Year wishes ... but I have been taking some family holiday time.  I have also been doing some drawing and working on some colouring pages ... Here are my fish ...  please remember that all work remains my property and copyright. 


You can see more of my daily drawings over at my other blog

One Tangle

Cheers
Jane x

I can if a Toucan

The next drawing is well underway .... this time I am using Faber-Castell Polychromos artists' colour pencils on Fabriano Artistico Hot Pressed Extra White Watercolour Paper - 300gsm. 

Once again my photo reference was taken by Tambako (you can look him up on Flickr).  His photographs are beautiful.

As you can see I am doing a few bird drawings.   I would love to do a series of Australian Birds, but need some reference photographs.


Can't wait until the weekend when I will be able to get back to this one ... Jane

Almost done

 Been a productive weekend ... this is the Macaw ... nearly finished now.

I thought I would go through what I had done, but am too tired ... some of the steps are shown below.   I might come edit it in the next few days and put in more of the base layer photos.

I am really happy how he pops off the page.   You know, I really didn't know that I could draw like this - well I knew I could draw - but not like this with coloured pencils ... I really do love it a lot - very satisfying.
Enjoy.  Jane

 Beak finished, doing more layering on the feather areas.   The beak has maybe 10 layers of colour.

 More layering on the feathered areas ... I ended up putting about 12 layers down.

 The black chest feathers are done and I am starting to put the feather details in on the orange/green areas.  Also more on the face ... lots of wrinkles on that face.

 A close up of the nearly finished pic...forgot to turn the flash off so the beak/face looks a bit washed out.

My work space

I have a secret!

My secret is that I love books ... I have a whole library of them and have been buying books since I was a teenager - I learn really well from books (I even did my degree by way of Distance Education with lots of books).  I have to tell you that the Book Depositry has become my best friend!  My books cover a lot of different subjects that have caught my attention over the years ... but one book I have been waiting for ... and it arrived this week. "Masterful Color" by Arlene Steinberg ... it is all about coloured pencil painting (I have a few books on the subject - grin!).   This book talks about how to use complimentary colours as underpainting.  I mainly use graphite as my drawing medium and while I have done a few coloured pencil drawings and even some paintings, and had heard of the concept (especially in the old masters paintings) I had never used complimentary colour underpainting before.   Do you want to follow along?

 This is Arlene's book ... just released.  She has a website here http://arlenesteinberg.com/ ...  go check it out later!














 
These will be my friend over the course of this journey ... I am using Sanford Prismacolor pencils and Prismacolor Verithin pencils.  You could use any good quality coloured pencils though - there are pros and cons for each different brand.  Hmmm I have a few of those too ... Prismacolor, Derwent Artists, Derwent Watercolour, Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils (one of my favourites) and I would love a set of Faber-Castell Abrecht Durer watercolour pencils - another year perhaps.  Pencils last a long time ... I have some still from when I was 15.  I used to buy one pencil at a time, $2.00 a pencil which was  a lot of money way back when I was 15 - OMG 30 years ago now - funny how you don't really feel different on the inside - it's all about gravity you know ;)

In this instance I will be using the Prismacolors.  I also use an Electric Pencil Sharpener to keep a nice fine point on my pencils ... sharpening your pencils become second habit and colouring feels wrong if the pencil is not sharp.

 This is my subject ... a beautiful Macaw.  This photo was taken by "Tambako", a fellow in Switzerland who is a wonderful photographer.  He has graciously given me permission to use his photo for my drawing. Thankyou :)

I have to tell you something ... when I print out my reference photos ... I use a gloss photo paper ... you get so much more depth than using just plain old printing paper.

 So I start by drawing my outlines and main features in with a 2B pencil very lightly.    Sorry the photos are not the best here ... I will try and take better ones as I progress.   You could use a lightbox and trace the outline if you like, or there are other methods of transferring a drawing onto your paper.

I am using Fabriano Artistico Extra White Hot Pressed Watercolour Paper in 300gsm.

I start the Underpainting ... I have used Indigo blue on the beak and have started a little on the eyes .. but back to them after.

In this photo you can see (just) that i have finished the underpainting of the beak and darker chest feather area with the Indigo Blue.  I have also underpainted the head - both the green and blue feather area with Clay Rose, as this colour is a complimentary colour for both of these main colours.
(am I making sense?)  I have also underpainted the orange feather area with Muted Turquoise.

I have used a very light touch with a very very sharp pencil, making very small circular overlapping movements - this helps to fill colour into all the paper and gives a nice smooth look. I leave white space where there are white areas in the picture.   I have also started to do the top of the beak where I was testing out using Black Cherry to give the Black beak some depth. (note to self .... use a piece of scrap paper the same as you are using for the portrait, to do the colour testing)   I will be adding more and more layers though.

So that is the start of my Macaw ... I will be spending more time during the weekend and hopefully will be able to show you something reasonably on its way by Sunday night.   Goodness now I had better put the computer and the pencils away and get off to work ... there is quilting to be done!

Cheers and have a good weekend everyone.   PS ... if there are any coloured pencil artists out there who wish to comment or add something more to my explanation, please feel free - the more the merrier!