New Forum, New Challenge

A Bright Spark,
5 inx 7 in, colored pencil on drafting film

A couple of weeks ago, my cyberchum Wendy Prior started a new forum, called Colored Pencil School. I tend to not get involved in boards, but I decided to try out this one, especially as it is relatively small.

Anyway, they started a challenge section. The rules are to have fun and use colored pencils. Above you see my efforts for the first challenge. As per my experimenting last week, I did this with "washes" and just slowly built it up over the whole picture, no one part being farther along than another. I did use a quick line drawing for the petals on the flowers, however, I almost wish now that I hadn't, particularly on the flower that is not in focus.

I'll assess it along the same lines as before:

• Bravery: OK, it would have been braver to attempt an animal, but I don't think I have enough of the right attitude towards animals to draw them. But, I did think this was going to be a bomb for me, but plunged in anyway.
• Speed: About two and half hours, in one sitting. Not overly fast, but it went fast for me.
• Insight: I did find myself asking good questions about values throughout, and spotting quickly where the trouble spots would be.
• Style: Like I said above, I wish I hadn't drawn in the flower petals, that might have enabled (forced) me to be a little looser.
• Growth: Hmm, well, I used alot of black...never done that before in a color picture. I realized as I was doing it that I couldn't get dark enough values with complementaries or indigo blue (my usual black).