Beach Rocks

There's something about rocks that I just love....I think it's their shape. (And if you don't get them perfect, noone notices!)

This was my second piece with the circular stroke on black paper, and the first piece that I realized I could really be an artist. That was the summer of 2003.
The Beach Rocks (8" x 10") Sold

Hot Rocks-Finished!

This is a scan of the final piece...which seems to have better, truer color than my photographic efforts.
This was great fun...the surface a bit challenging....but I'm ready to try a larger piece now. Hot Rocks 5" x 7" Colored Pencil and Neocolor w/s pastels on pastelboard

Rose in Circular Stroke

My work in progress, "Hot Rocks", has been sitting on the drawing board for a couple of days, while I get prepared for my workshop next Saturday.

The workshop is about working on black, values, and the circular stroke. So I thought I would post one of my early works using this technique. Rose 7" x 7" Colored Pencil on Black Sold

Yippee!

I just received word today that "String Theory" (further back in my blog-November 23, 2007 entry) was accepted into the 2008 Englewood National Juried Art Show. The exhibit will be Apr 3 -26, with the reception on April 4 from 6-8. The exhibit will be at the Englewood Civic Center (Hampden Hall) Englewood, CO.

Nothing like starting off the year with an acceptance. I find I like acceptances much better than rejections ;-)

Hot Rocks! Today's Work

Today's progress - the left side is pretty close to done. I will work on the right side tomorrow to get the values laid in and some basic color. Then I'll check the greyscale to see if it holds together as a black/white image (for the value structure) as well.

It's been a fun project!

Hot Rocks! Work in Progress

Here is another little experiment with the underpainting of Neocolor II wax pastels. Instead of using my beloved Prismas, I am trying the Coloursoft's by Derwent. They seem to do better on the pastelboard. Not as crumbly and you don't have to sharpen as often. And they don't seem to have such a waxy build-up as the Prismas. However, the set I have of Coloursoft only has Indigo and Black for darks, so I have had to use the Black Grape, Black Cherry, and Black Raspberry colors from my Prismas.

The first pic is the 5 x 7 pastelboard with my transferred sketch and the Neo's colored on.

Second pic is after water has been brushed onto the Neos.

Third pic is my progress so far. I know you should never let 'em see you sweat, but this one has been a challenge. For one the Orange is really intense, secondly I'm not familiar with the Coloursoft colors and what they can do. But now that I have most of the "naked" orange covered, it looks like it might pull together at some point.

You will have to stay tuned in the next couple of days to see......"Will she pull this one off?"

Peach with Neocolor II Crayons

I wanted to try the Neocolor II watersoluble crayons as an underpainting for colored pencil. I have a small set so I might be more picky in the colors I would select. I chose the blue because it is the complement for orange and would make a nice shadow color.

The rest of the colors chosen were analogous to the finished color. As I was working I learned you can put more Neocolor over the top of the cp which helped alot. And I used a stiff bristle brush to scrub in the colors.

In this first picture the dark background has black Neocolor, Tuscan Red, Dark Green, and Indigo Blue applied. I repeated the process a couple of times as I smushed in the color with the brush.

The second picture is the finished product. I must say I was pleased with the Neocolors and the Pastelboard (my first time for both).

Just Peachy III (5 x 7") Neocolor II w/s crayons with Prismacolor on Pastelboard

H2....Uh, Oh

6 x 8" colored pencil on Stonehenge

Just for fun! Many of my students have drawn this piece to learn complementary underpainting. Each of the segments was started with its complement to do the shadows (except for the purple "pie"...it's complement, yellow, just wouldn't have enough value to provide shadow material.)

Underpainting colors (Prismacolors)

For the yellow pie I used Dahlia Purple and Black Grape for shadows

For the orange pie... Blue Slate and Indigo Blue

For the red pie...Dark Green

For the purple pie...Black Grape and Indigo Blue

For the blue pie...Pumpkin Orange and Burnt Sienna

For the green pie...Tuscan Red