Leslie’s Blog

      

Cabbage by  Leslie D’Allesandro Hawes  Derwent Artists Colored Pencils on colored mat board

This is my drawing for the  August Virtual Sketch Date. 

The luscious reference photograph for this months Virtual Sketch Date is provided by  Sherrie Roberts at Quilt Knit.    Administrator for this months artists’ posts is  Rose Welty at Rose’s Art Lines.

Thank you, both.

 

I love doing the Virtual Sketch Dates.

Each month, a new reference photo is posted, and artists that

want to participate in the Virtual Sketch Date leave a comment at the  Virtual Sketch Date Blog  saying that they are joining in.  Artists then make their art, and post their results on their own blogs.  The VSD Blog then links to all the posts, so it’s easy to see what everyone has created.

There are artist guidelines at the  Virtual Sketch Date Blog,  and  links to previous “Dates”  for you to see. Go take a look, and if you want to, please join in.  It is great fun!

I have used this opportunity to provide another demonstration of my colored pencil drawing process.

The following series of photos show how I prepared to draw, and then I have posted a series of scans of the drawing in progress.

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First I make a color copy and a black and white copy of the reference photo. The color copy is used to help me choose a composition, and then as a color reference while I’m drawing.  The black and white copy gets used as a template for the shape I draw.

Using a mat with an opening size that I wish to make the drawing, I hunt around on the color copy for the composition I like.

 I mark off the composition on the black and white copy, and then cut it out.

 Using a mat of my chosen size, I draw an outline of the area I am going to color.  The finished drawing size for this drawing is 4 and 1/2 inches  by  6 and 1/2 inches.

 Using the black and white copy, I cut out the major shape, in this case, the cabbage, and trace around the  shape onto my drawing surface. I am using a raw sienna colored pencil on a burnt sienna colored mat.

 The colored pencils that I used for this drawing are, left to right, in the photo below:   madder carmine,  orange chrome,  zinc yellow,  emerald green,  mineral green,  light blue,  imperial purple,  chinese white, raw sienna  and  chocolate.  I added pink madder lake for the little cluster of pink flowers in the center of the drawing, but forgot to show the pencil in the bunch.

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Here are scans of the drawing as it progessed:

I started with the raw sienna outline, and sketched the other areas in with chinese white.

 As I sketched in the preliminary areas, I was struck by the feeling of the drawing looking like a Japanese  woodblock print,  or an  embroidery  of a chrysanthemum, so I went with that idea.  It was definitely not planned, but I liked the way it looked.

 I lightly fill in areas of color.  I didn’t stick with any particular order for what color followed another.  They all went on at the same time, but a light layer only, wherever I colored. 

As I was doing this, it became obvious that the background was going to remain very faint and non-detailed, with the concentration of detail being in the cabbage.

 More layers of color. I avoided adding color layers to the background, and worked on adding white and light blue and imperial purple to the cabbage.

 

I softened the background by going over the entire area with orange chrome in a very light layer. I added another layer of raw sienna to the outline, and tried to stress the whitest areas.

 The last step for any of my drawings is to add the darkest little bits and spots. In this last scan of the drawing, the bottom right corners got some extra touches of imperial purple and chocolate.

Chocolate. 

It’s a Derwent Artists color. 

Really.  

Daaaarkkk chocolate….

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I didn’t add a signature to the drawing, because I couldn’t decide which position appealed to me.

I think I like them all.

Which one do you like?

Leslie