Coloured Pencil Leaves WIP...

Here is what my new piece looks like now...the picture below is to give you an idea of the size of the image. I think once it is cropped similar to the image above, it will be 22" x 16".

The colours are a bit off in the photos, the light green leaves are looking too much like light blue here. Despite my talk in the last post about how I wanted to control the process more in this piece, I don't feel too much in control at this point! I am not clear on where this is heading but I think that is a good thing. Maybe I should put my classical music back on and stop all the dancing around I've been doing! :-) I wonder what it will look like the next time I post? Ah, the adventure of it all...



Thanks goes out to Vic who passed this blog award on to me. If you wish to read my list of seven things I love, you can read them at the end of this post.

My colourful chunk of chard continues...

Chard WIP, 17" x 7"

Coloured Pencil on Colorfix Paper

copyright Teresa Mallen

Kind of need sunglasses to look at it now! Rather bright isn't it? :-)

Ah, but it is intentional. I like to work rather bright at the beginning of a piece. When I add further layers of colour, I can tone things down. This prevents a work from becoming 'dull' and when you work in coloured pencil, it is difficult to brighten up an area that is dull. Having said that, it would be easier on coloured paper as you can add light over dark on these surfaces.

Another reason for going so bright at the beginning, is that I want to capture the glow that is happening due to the backlighting. Going bright also gives energy to the final colour as the lower layers of pigment affect what we see. Here is an example: (and I know this is difficult to see in this small picture) for the stem of the chard I first put down a layer of a yellowish orange colour. I followed this with a deep pink (think fuchsia) and then I added an orange-ish red. Of course this will be more effective once all of the surrounding green gets established.

At this stage I have been mostly concerned with getting my shapes in where they need to be and I wanted to get a layer of colour down over most of the piece. Next I will work to build up colour and I will start being more mindful of the value changes. I rather like the chard at this stage so who knows how much this will get toned down!

So, back to the studio and again, thanks in advance for not giving me helpful hints in the comments section on this piece.

Swiss Chard WIP continues...

Swiss Chard WIP

Coloured Pencil on Colorfix Paper

After my planning and sketching, I have moved to working on the paper! Yippee!! As you can see, I did end up choosing the reddish brown Colorfix paper. I have transferred the line drawing and I am now starting to work on getting some pigment down.

To get started, I pick out large shapes and I define them with an initial layer of colour. This serves as a road map as I work. These shapes help orient me as to where about I am on the drawing. Of course I went for some immediate gratification. Now that I have the pencils in my hand I must get to some juicy stuff - so in went the backlit shapes. Ah, very satisfying. The oodles and oodles of green in this piece can wait.

As far as technique goes, my first layer is applied with a rather dull pencil. Once this layer is in place, I go over the shapes with the same colour, this time with a sharper pencil. With this step I am filling in more of the textured surface. Colorfix paper is a sanded paper intended primarily for pastel artists. I know that some artists wish to fill in the tooth of the paper, even when working on gritty paper (often they apply an underpainting). I like the paper showing through a bit so I will not be attempting to completely cover and fill in the textured surface. Having said that, I don't want so much paper to show through that the work looks blotchy or unfinished. Even when using a coloured surface, I create my colour by applying layers of pigment. I personally find that just using one or two layers tends to make a work look incomplete and hastily done. While many people use coloured paper to speed things up a bit and it does help you get darker values faster, I don't think this should be a reason to skimp on putting down pigment.

As you can see from the photo, I work all over the place. This piece is no longer a stalk of chard but rather a beautiful, richly coloured puzzle of connecting shapes and lines that I get to explore with my eyes and my pencils.

As mentioned before, this piece may be entered into competitions so please, no helpful suggestions in the comments. Thanks. And yippee, this is my 100th post!! Woo hoo!! I can't think of a better way to celebrate than to head back to the studio...

my journey to a painting continues...

One week ago, I posted an entry on my latest piece - how I was inspired to create a painting of Swiss chard, how I went about the photo shoot and how this led me to sifting through my photos for an image that captivated me.

After playing about with my photos in Photoshop, I found an image that worked for me. It is a close up of one of the stalks and it looks like this.

So why did I choose this image? Why do I want to paint/draw it? Mainly for the beautiful shapes created by the backlighting. When I focus on these shapes, the image takes on an abstract quality. It becomes more than just a picture of a chard stalk. I also love the hills and valleys in the darker sections and the wonderful colours in the veins and in the shadows. I know it is hard to see all of this in such a small image but trust me, they are there. :-)

My next step was to create the drawing. I have finished a line drawing. I have placed the major shapes and curves in the stalk in my initial drawing. From there, once I start using my coloured pencils I will continue to draw as I work. Right now, the size of the drawing is something like 14" w and 5 or 6" h.

After that came the decision as to what sort of support I would use. When I was first inspired by the chard a few months ago, I made a point of grabbing some extra sheets of Colorfix paper the next time I was at my local art supply store. So, in the running are a 400 sheet of UART, an 800 sheet, Stonehenge of course and three different colours of Colorfix - a green sheet, a reddish one and a sheet that is a sort of mustard color. I took some pencils out and I worked on some scrap bits of paper to see which sheet gave me the look I am after. This is what the picture at the top of the post shows. I have my transfer paper out and ready to go as I think the final yes is going to a coloured sheet. Probably the reddish one...

Having invested so much time on this piece already, (I'm thinking back to my trip to a specialty supermarket to find Rhubarb chard) I was encouraged to read a statement yesterday by Vera Curnow (founder of the CPSA): "But, we all know that the conceptual stage of artwork often takes longer than the execution." Whew! I'm not the only one!! :-)

But hey, all I need to do now is transfer that drawing and then the cps come out. Yippee!

Finally, I would like to say that this piece, should it turn out favourably, will be a piece that I will consider entering into exhibitions and/or shows. That means that I need to ask readers to not give me critical feedback. This must be solely my work and I am not to be influenced to make changes etc. So in order to post this as a WIP, I ask that you refrain from giving me suggestions for improvement. I'm not trying to scare you off from posting a comment, I think saying my work is fabulous is allowed, :-) just no helpful hints. Thank you.

my coloured pencil painting process

The first photo includes a few sources of inspiration for my current piece. Several years ago, I clipped out the photo of the fungi from a conservation magazine. I have always thought that tree fungus would be a great subject for a painting. This photo stashed away in an ideas file, helped me to remember this. I also collected a couple of fungus bits because I wanted to have them in my studio. Further inspiration.

I recently found some lovely fungi on some logs in our forest. The lower photos are just a couple of pictures that I took one afternoon.

With regards to Karen's question regarding the artistic process, I have now gone from images from a photo, to live fungi in my forest, to a decision on what my subject matter is.

Tomorrow I shall talk about what comes next now that I have decided on my subject.