new coloured pencil rose

center of a rose, wip, coloured pencil on Stonehenge, 18" x 8"

copyright Teresa Mallen

Here is my newest work in progress. You might notice the similarity in size, subject matter and style to my last piece. Woo-hoo, looks like a series is in the making! Usually I am not keen to work on a subject that is so similar to something that I have just finished. As a result, I usually don't work in a series. Of course all artists know that it is a good idea to work in a series (at least once in a while) but I must confess that I am a bit too hedonistic to stick to this good advice. Ah, but perhaps this time...I would just need to complete one more and I would have a small series!

Like the last piece, I am working on a rose - cps on Stonehenge paper. Again, this piece is all about curves and delicately blended colour. As you can see, I have yet to add colour to some petals while other areas have been quite developed. I hop all over as I work, adding a bit of colour here and there. At 18 inches wide, the piece has some lovely drama to it already.

My flower gardens are flourishing. Peonies, poppies and lupines are all displaying their beauty. Here is a lovely lisianthus...

and an allium...


I think it is time to brew up some tea and to sit amongst the flowers for a spell. I want to rewrite some of my press material and sitting in the garden will help make this a more enjoyable task!

So how about you, do you like working in a series?

Finally, the orchids are done!

So here they are, orchids on burgundy Colorfix pastel paper and orchids on white Stonehenge.

This is the first time I have done this. Here we have the same artist, using the same image, creating the pieces at the same time, with the same techniques and the same pencils. I went back to the pastel paper one and tweaked some of the things that irritated me. At first, I was sure I would prefer the Stonehenge version but I have to admit that the pastel paper image has grown on me quite a bit.

Working on the pastel paper piece was a bit faster. I thought it would take me much longer to do the Stonehenge piece but it didn't. It would have made more of a difference if the paintings had been bigger in size. If I had attempted to create a dark background on the Stonehenge it would have taken me much longer. I have already written my thoughts on working on the sanded pastel surface. Suffice to say that at the time it felt like I wasn't able to get the detail that I wanted and I also felt that my style was looser. What is humorous to me is the fact that in the end, the two pieces look so similar.

In my opinion, the dark one looks richer and more dramatic. It definitely gets your attention in the 'across the room' test. This impact disappears when daylight starts to fade. In a normally lit room, the dark piece doesn't stand out near as well as it does in the daytime and you definitely lose the detail. This effect was brought up earlier in a comment that Cindy Haase made. Lighting is very important if you are displaying dark pieces. The one on Stonehenge looks more delicate and perhaps less intense. It does look great in normal house lighting in the evening.

In the end, not exactly the dramatic difference I expected between the two versions. It just comes down to personal preference. I like them both! This has been an interesting experiment with some surprises along the way. Why not try this yourself? Challenge yourself to work outside your box , (the pastel paper was 'getting outside the box' for me) and maybe you will be surprised too!

I have the April issue of my newsletter just about ready to post. I am attending an art conference tomorrow so the issue will probably get out tomorrow night. I shall let you know and of course I will report back on the conference.

'Orchids' WIP continued

Here is what my Orchids on Stonehenge looks like now. It is is almost finished. I need to spend some time tweaking the veins in the petals. Once it is completely finished, I shall post a picture of it alongside the version that I did on the Colorfix pastel paper.

Orchids on Stonehenge WIP

It is looking better now...please note that the background colour isn't as dark as it appears in the photo. Also, the finished composition will be different as I will be cropping it when it is matted.

As I mentioned in the last post, when I began working on the flowers I started with the areas with the darkest values. Here you can see that I worked those areas quite a bit. Satisfied that I had established my darkest values, I started to work on the upper right and left petals. I worked on the upper right one first and then the left one. I work on areas like this separately because I don't want to miss the uniqueness of the different petals. For example, if I applied a base layer all over the right one and then did the same thing on the left and then repeated this with each colour, there would be the possibility that I would miss subtle differences in shading and colour between the two petals.

I am working from the top of the flowers down. If I had done the lower petals first, my hand would be positioned over the finished petals while I worked on the upper ones. I don't typically work with a hand guard. While coloured pencil pigment doesn't usually smear (oil based pencils are more prone to this or if you have a lot of dark pigment applied it will), I prefer not to have my hand resting on a finished part of the paper. While the upper blossoms are not finished, I have the majority of the base colours down.

Orchids on Stonehenge WIP

One of the reasons I created this blog was so that people who were interested in coloured pencil could get a sense of how an artist actually uses them. When I first started my art journey, I really would have appreciated an opportunity to watch over someone's shoulder as they worked. Even today I would like to hang out in another artist's studio...you can learn a lot by watching someone work. Therefore, I shall try to detail some of the steps involved in creating this new piece. Please keep in mind that this is just my way of working, there are many ways to use coloured pencils.

First of all, I am redoing the orchids (as seen in previous posts on pastel paper). This time I am using a white printmaking paper, Stonehenge brand. To start, I transferred my drawing to the Stonehenge using a lightbox. I drew on my Stonehenge using a gray Col-Erase pencil (made by Sanford). I prefer this to graphite as it is a soft pencil and therefore less likely to score the paper. It also erases beautifully. I don't mind drawing over the Col-Erase lines if I am using a dark coloured pencil. If you use a graphite pencil for your drawing make sure that you use very light pressure. Graphite seems a bit greasy and it can smear. Essentially you want the lines of the drawing to be barely visible. Once my drawing was completed I lifted off some of the excess pencil pigment with reusable adhesive.

My next step was to do the background. I chose to work on the background first as I would be building up the colours in the orchids in relation to whatever colour the background became.

Why did I create a yellowish background? First of all, I love the colour. :-) Secondly, most of my paintings have a light background and I would say that this is part of my style. Orchids are delicate looking and I like the fact that the light background doesn't overpower the flowers. Third, the blossoms will end up being various shades of violet and the background colour is opposite violet on the colour wheel. I like using complementary colours in my work.

Using Prismacolor pencils, I started the background with a layer of Cream, using a vertical stroke. I added two more layers of colour on top, Sand and Jasmine. By establishing a light coloured layer first, the following darker layers look more even. The background didn't take long. I erased any visible pencil lines outlining the blossom edges as I coloured up to them.

Next I layered in some colours for the stem and then I went to work on the darkest areas of the piece. I like to establish my darks first as again, I will colour the rest of the blossoms in relation to the depth of values I achieve here. I establish my darks by working light to dark. I took a close up photo to show you just how light I start off in the beginning. This slow build up of colour isn't necessary, it is just how I like to work. I like to gradually build up colour as this way I can change direction easily. As I have control of the developing colour, I find I don't end up having to lift colour. In the second picture, you might be able to see how light my pressure is. I don't burnish and there is still lots of tooth visible in the paper. Keep in mind that I will be adding more pencil layers so I don't want to completely fill the tooth of the paper. You can also see that I have begun to play with building up the violet colour in the petals. It doesn't look too attractive at the moment but it will get there.