Today I am going to show pictures step-by-step of how I approach a colored pencil drawing.
First, I pick a photograph to use as a source material. This photo is of a yellow rose that I took in 2014. Every summer my husband's family goes to Sandbridge Beach (Virginia Beach) for a week, and last year I made sure to make time to visit the Norfolk Botanical Gardens one day so I could increase my personal stock of flower photographs. There's a Bicentennial Rose Garden there that is SO beautiful. I'd never seen so many roses in one place before. I took probably a zillion pictures. This is one of them.
Because I knew I would be making this colored pencil drawing on toned tan sketch paper, I adjusted the image in Photoshop so that it was monochromatic (only black and white). I didn't want the color of the photograph to distract me from being able to find the light/dark contrast I wanted to play up. I also knew that I wanted to add my own touch of whimsical color once the blacks and whites were down, and I didn't want my color choice to be decided by how the flower had actually looked in real life.
After all, if I'd just wanted a true-to-life image, I would have just printed out the photograph I'd taken. With creating art, we have the option to change things and make it our own. :)
Using the black and white photograph as inspiration, I started the drawing. I measured out a 5"x7" square and made markings in each corner so that I could be sure to fill at least that much of the paper.
I did not draw out an outline first. My goal with this drawing was to focus on shape rather than line. One of my drawing teachers once pointed out to the class that lines do not exist in the real world. There are edges to things - the edges of one rose petal to the next, for instance - but they're not lines. They're simply the space where two different planes or shapes meet - the plane of a table intersecting the air, or the area where my arm meets the armrest of a chair. We might use lines to represent them on paper, but in actuality they're fields of value, or fields of color.
This is what I think of when I do a colored pencil drawing. I look at the source photograph and try to pick out all of the places in the photograph where there is white. Then, on my paper, I color in those white shapes.
Then, I look at my source photograph and pick out the shadows - the places where there are dark areas. And I color in those dark fields with a black colored pencil.
At this point, I often have to go back and revisit the white areas, to play up the contrast more. There are a greater variation of darks (dark-dark vs. only somewhat dark) that I can achieve with a black colored pencil on toned tan paper, but the white colored pencil is more limited. I have the first layer of white that I already put down - and now I go back and put a lot of pressure on the white colored pencil to make the whitest white highlights.
Now, my drawing looks more or less like my black and white photograph. So to add my "color whimsy" I bust out a fun aqua colored pencil. I use this in some areas of shadow and some areas of highlight, blending it with the black or white colors that are already there.
Finally, I decided that I wanted to darken the shadows a bit more - and that I wanted to use a brown instead of a black colored pencil to do so, to relate with the toned tan sketchbook paper.
Then, I post a picture on Instagram so I can get the validation of complete strangers "liking" my artwork. :)
When I'm all finished, I put a white Crescent beveled mat around the drawing. This helps me store these drawings better by keeping them flat and protected (the mats also come with plastic sleeves for storage), and it also makes them easier to ship, since the mat gives it a bit of solidity to keep it straight. Furthermore, if I were to take these colored pencil drawings to an art fair or similar venue, it would be easy to let customers flip through my collection of drawings, since they're so well-protected. And, of course, it means they're ready to be framed and hung by whoever purchases it, which is always a plus from a buyer's standpoint.
Ta-Da! :) The whole process takes about 2 hours. Maybe thirty minutes to adjust the source photograph in Photoshop and print it out, and 1-1.5 hours to draw the image. They certainly get faster the more I do them. You know what they say - practice makes efficiency!
I have found that I do some of my best work when I am working quickly. When the drawing or painting is too big and takes a lot of time and effort, I get in my head too much. I figure if I'm putting in that much effort, I'd better make it perfect. But with these little drawings, I don't have to worry if I make a "colossal mistake"... because there's no such thing as a colossal mistake! They're not colossal undertakings! If I were to mess up a drawing beyond fixing, I would have only wasted a small piece of paper and a few hours of my time. But colored pencil is actually a pretty forgiving medium (definitely more forgiving than watercolor), so it's easy to adjust or cover-up (or even erase, if the pencil is light enough and the paper strong enough) any little mistakes that might happen.
You can purchase this 5"x7" drawing for $39 at my Etsy store!
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| "Rose with a Hint of Aqua" - Finished Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit (shown with photograph source material and 4 colored pencils used) |
First, I pick a photograph to use as a source material. This photo is of a yellow rose that I took in 2014. Every summer my husband's family goes to Sandbridge Beach (Virginia Beach) for a week, and last year I made sure to make time to visit the Norfolk Botanical Gardens one day so I could increase my personal stock of flower photographs. There's a Bicentennial Rose Garden there that is SO beautiful. I'd never seen so many roses in one place before. I took probably a zillion pictures. This is one of them.
Because I knew I would be making this colored pencil drawing on toned tan sketch paper, I adjusted the image in Photoshop so that it was monochromatic (only black and white). I didn't want the color of the photograph to distract me from being able to find the light/dark contrast I wanted to play up. I also knew that I wanted to add my own touch of whimsical color once the blacks and whites were down, and I didn't want my color choice to be decided by how the flower had actually looked in real life.
After all, if I'd just wanted a true-to-life image, I would have just printed out the photograph I'd taken. With creating art, we have the option to change things and make it our own. :)
Using the black and white photograph as inspiration, I started the drawing. I measured out a 5"x7" square and made markings in each corner so that I could be sure to fill at least that much of the paper.
I did not draw out an outline first. My goal with this drawing was to focus on shape rather than line. One of my drawing teachers once pointed out to the class that lines do not exist in the real world. There are edges to things - the edges of one rose petal to the next, for instance - but they're not lines. They're simply the space where two different planes or shapes meet - the plane of a table intersecting the air, or the area where my arm meets the armrest of a chair. We might use lines to represent them on paper, but in actuality they're fields of value, or fields of color.
This is what I think of when I do a colored pencil drawing. I look at the source photograph and try to pick out all of the places in the photograph where there is white. Then, on my paper, I color in those white shapes.
 |
| Step 1: White Colored Pencil ("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit) |
Then, I look at my source photograph and pick out the shadows - the places where there are dark areas. And I color in those dark fields with a black colored pencil.
 |
| Step 2: Black Colored Pencil ("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit) |
At this point, I often have to go back and revisit the white areas, to play up the contrast more. There are a greater variation of darks (dark-dark vs. only somewhat dark) that I can achieve with a black colored pencil on toned tan paper, but the white colored pencil is more limited. I have the first layer of white that I already put down - and now I go back and put a lot of pressure on the white colored pencil to make the whitest white highlights.
 |
| Step 3: More White Colored Pencil ("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit) |
Now, my drawing looks more or less like my black and white photograph. So to add my "color whimsy" I bust out a fun aqua colored pencil. I use this in some areas of shadow and some areas of highlight, blending it with the black or white colors that are already there.
 |
| Step 4: Aqua Colored Pencil ("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit) |
Finally, I decided that I wanted to darken the shadows a bit more - and that I wanted to use a brown instead of a black colored pencil to do so, to relate with the toned tan sketchbook paper.
 |
| Step 5: Dark Brown Colored Pencil ("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit) |
Then, I post a picture on Instagram so I can get the validation of complete strangers "liking" my artwork. :)
When I'm all finished, I put a white Crescent beveled mat around the drawing. This helps me store these drawings better by keeping them flat and protected (the mats also come with plastic sleeves for storage), and it also makes them easier to ship, since the mat gives it a bit of solidity to keep it straight. Furthermore, if I were to take these colored pencil drawings to an art fair or similar venue, it would be easy to let customers flip through my collection of drawings, since they're so well-protected. And, of course, it means they're ready to be framed and hung by whoever purchases it, which is always a plus from a buyer's standpoint.
 |
| Finished piece (5"x7" artwork in white 8"x10" mat) "Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit |
Ta-Da! :) The whole process takes about 2 hours. Maybe thirty minutes to adjust the source photograph in Photoshop and print it out, and 1-1.5 hours to draw the image. They certainly get faster the more I do them. You know what they say - practice makes efficiency!
I have found that I do some of my best work when I am working quickly. When the drawing or painting is too big and takes a lot of time and effort, I get in my head too much. I figure if I'm putting in that much effort, I'd better make it perfect. But with these little drawings, I don't have to worry if I make a "colossal mistake"... because there's no such thing as a colossal mistake! They're not colossal undertakings! If I were to mess up a drawing beyond fixing, I would have only wasted a small piece of paper and a few hours of my time. But colored pencil is actually a pretty forgiving medium (definitely more forgiving than watercolor), so it's easy to adjust or cover-up (or even erase, if the pencil is light enough and the paper strong enough) any little mistakes that might happen.
You can purchase this 5"x7" drawing for $39 at my Etsy store!
I've often thought a marketing class would be a helpful addition to a BFA curriculum. This blog entry has a lot of elements in it that could be included in a marketing textbook written specifically for artists.
ReplyDeleteYeah I've been reading some art marketing books at the library lately to get ideas, and one of the suggestions I saw was to keep a blog like this, to post art every day and Tweet/Instagram/Pin/Facebook it, so that's what I've been trying to do! :)
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