Working from Real Life....

After posting about my little black box and how to set up for a photo shoot, I thought I would now show you how you could use it for a still life/real life painting resource.

I don't work from real life enough because colored pencil is so slow...these pears would be long dead before I finished the piece. BUT.....it's amazing what you see in real life...the color that the camera/computer just don't pick up. It's almost a spiritual experience to try to capture their "life". Very deep, huh?

Here is a pic of the setup, with the same lighting as before. But I'm not photographing it to work from only to show the setup.


After getting a quick sketch of the pears only for placement, I cover the 8 x 10 pastelbord with some very basic values/colors. Then I smooshed (love that technical term) the pastels around so the edges are really fuzzy and the board is completely covered. Note - there is no underpainting for this one. Just buttery soft Ludwigs.

This is my second sitting with the pears, trying to get the shapes more defined/refined. I'm also introducing more color variations/values. You can just see how the addition of some colors makes such a huge difference to the already present colors. Which is why even when you are working on colored pencil you want to get your background in and all the basic values before you try to put in the detail.

I'm trying to incorporate some concepts that were given to me yesterday on "Pot, Orange and Eggs" by a great critiquer. He told me to be fearless, not so precise with my edges, watch my color harmony, and introduce some neutrals so that some things "sing" and some "sing backup". My words.