Leslie’s Art Blog

April 24, 2010

Stop On Red

Filed under: Artist materials, Monthly Sketch Project — leslie @ 7:33 pm

           

I found a piece of red matboard in my paper file, and thought, “That would be an interesting background color for a drawing!”

I cut it into a  4.5″ x 6.5″ size, suitable for my Drawing A Day project. 

 I couldn’t wait to try it.  I had seen red monochromatic underpaintings, with the red showing through, and thought they looked great.

When ffyrebird provided the macaws as the reference photo for the Monthly Sketch Project, I was certain that this was the perfect subject to draw on the red matboard.  I would use a technique of leaving the red parts uncolored to show through for the birds, and just draw in the color all around the macaws.

That all seemed to be working, at first.

I created my outline drawing and began to fill in the background with Imperial Purple.  It looked okay, but just okay.  I pressed on, well aware that a drawing will often look terrible with just the first layers of color in place. I worked on the eyes and beaks of the parrots to get the expressions in place, hoping that securing the faces of the birds would encourage me to continue.

 This is where it all went wrong.

As I added white to the beak of the macaw on the left, two spots of the paper just lifted off.  Not little spots, but darned near one quarter of the area of the beak just shredded off.  You can see the spots in the drawing at the top of the post.

 It was a flaw in the paper right on an important spot of the subject. 

 Drat!

I tried gently covering the newly exposed underlayer of the paper, using all my tricky mistake fixin’ expertise,  and it  refused  to accept color.  The more I tried, no matter how gently, all I got was paper fiber leaving the surface and no color going down.  I began to toy with the idea of white watercolor, even liquid paper…

There is a lesson here, somewhere.

Sometimes a piece just doesn’t work, and it doesn’t matter how badly you might want it to.  You have to give it up and start over.

 I wanted to work on red.  I wanted to get a piece done after not doing a Drawing A Day for a few days. 

I did NOT want to start over. 

So instead of doing the smart, productive thing and starting over, I walked past my little red, unfinished, blemished drawing for two more days.  I poked at it with the pencils a few times, adding green and yellow feathers.  I was hoping that somehow it was magically not going to have those spots in the beak, and I wouldn’t have to begin again.

While I did that little dance of denial, no other artwork was being made. 

Stop On Red.

I finally pushed the little red drawing to the back of the drawing board and started over.  I must be stubborn or something.

I chose a different color Alphamat to work on, a nice dependable dark taupe, sketched in my outline, and began coloring in.  

In not too long, I was finished!  How easy was that?!

I posted the finished drawing on my blog, and in a condition to sell, not with a big bump on his beak.

I’ll try red again sometime, but I’m checking for bumps in the paper first! :)

Leslie

Leslie

September 12, 2009

Peacock drawing step by step

Filed under: Artist materials, How To Draw, Leslie's Art, Monthly Sketch Project, Step by Step Drawing — leslie @ 2:08 am

  copy-of-peacock   

The Peacock   (c)  Leslie D’Allesandro Hawes

I drew The Peacock as part of the group, Monthly Sketch Project, and have used it as one of my Drawing A Day pieces.  I thought I might make this drawing serve another purpose, too, of giving me a new step by step demonstration for Leslie’s Art Blog.

The Peacock is drawn with Derwent Artists colored pencils, and measures 2.5″ x 4″  on a taupe colored alpha mat board that measures 5″ x 7″.

The colors that I have used are:

  • Chinese White
  • Gunmetal
  • Light Blue
  • Chocolate
  • Ivory Black
  • Zinc Yellow
  • Emerald Green
  • Raw Sienna
  • Ultramarine
  • Venetian Red
  • Imperial Purple

This is the reference photo, provided by Jennifer at Fuzzydragons.   Thanks so much, Jennifer, for the great pic!

peacockref

 

 I placed a standard sized 5″  x 7″ mat over the taupe colored alpha mat, and drew an outline with a regular graphite pencil, just slightly smaller than the mats’ pre-cut 3″ x 4.5″ opening.   I have a tendency to draw “outside the lines”, and I have to make a conscious effort to draw an outline first before sketching, or I wind up with a drawing way bigger than will fit inside any mat!  I have trouble with straight lines, too, so my borders have, as aptly described by a friend,  an “organic”  style.

Once I had my area defined, I drew my sketch, using a regular graphite pencil.  ( Couldn’t keep the peacock head feathers inside the lines! )

copy-of-peacock-1-graphite-pencil-sketch

When I had a sketch I liked, I lightly redrew over top of those graphite lines with the Gunmetal colored pencil.  Then I used my kneaded eraser and rubbed all over the drawing, removing the graphite and leaving the Gunmetal sketch.   I do that to remove the graphite which tends to smear.  The colored pencil doesn’t.

It’s a bit of a trick to decide how dark to make the Gunmetal overdrawing.  Too dark isn’t what you want , but it has to stand up to the gentle erasing.  You’ll figure out how dark to make it after the first or second time you erase your sketch completely.  Ask me how I know…

After the erasing was done, I started to lay in color.  I began with Chinese White, and got most of it in place on the face, the eye highlight, and beak of the peacock.  The chest feathers on the left side were in sunlight, so they got Chinese White, too.

I added some of the bright Light Blue to the right side of the neck…I wanted to see if the color was bright enough, and it seemed to be.

copy-of-peacock-2-chinese-white-and-light-blue

 

Then I chose the Chocolate colored pencil  ( isn’t that a great name for a color? ) and began to shape around the eye.

Next, I colored the eye with Ivory Black.

copy-of-peacock-3-add-chocolate-ivory-black-and-zinc-yellow

 

Then I colored the background with Emerald Green.  It was the first of a few layers of different colors on the background.

copy-of-peacock-4-emerald-green-background  

 

I got busy with the Chinese White making the shapes of all the chest feathers, and then filled in around the Chinese White with Light Blue and Chocolate.  The trick for me is to  not  go over the white with another color.   I colored in with Raw Sienna on the top of the head and on the head feather tips.

  copy-of-peacock-5-add-raw-sienna

 

I became happily involved with coloring at this point, and could have shown one or two more steps here.  By the time I thought about it, I had added Ultramarine blue on the neck, and bits of Zinc Yellow and Chocolate on the background. More layers of Chocolate went on the neck, and I darkened the outline of the drawing with Imperial Purple.

  copy-of-peacock-6-ultramarine   

 

Venetian Red was added to the top of his head and the tips of his head feathers.

   copy-of-peacock-7-venetian-red 

 

The last  thing I did was add more layers to each color if they needed to be brighter. I added more Zinc Yellow to the background, more Light Blue to the feathers, and a splash of Imperial Purple right in the center of the neck.  I gave the whole peacock an outline of Chocolate to make him stand out a bit.  Then I signed in graphite pencil, because it makes a nice sharp point to write with.  I spray fixed with Krylon Crystal Clear fixative held at a good distance so the drawing barely got misted. Usually two coats of very light misting with fixative.

That’s it!

If you ever have any questions, please email. leslie at lesliehawes dot com 

Now go sharpen those pencils!

Leslie

copy-of-peacock

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