First fruits!

I can see why people have gardens. We bought a tomato plant about a month ago and one tomato ripened just a few weeks later. (The plant already had green tomatoes on it.) This week, between the rain we've had and now the heat, several more have begun to ripen. What a wonderful subject for my WC pencils class!

I loved the fact that each tomato was a different color. And now I know a bit more about the plant. For instance, the stem that goes to each tomato actually bends; it's not just a curve. I should have omitted the teeny green tomato in the center as I couldn't get it to pop out sufficiently. Still, this may provide me with more details for a real painting later on.

Pine cone

This pine cone was a found object from one of my recent walks. I decided to do a detailed observation of it for my WC pencils class. As I examined it closely, I realized that the dark parts of it formed a nice pattern, a real spiral. I also thought it would be good to do a step-by-step drawing of it.

Here's the pine cone, pretty ordinary looking, with the finished one beside it:










I sketched it and then lightly shaded in the darks, trying to emphasize their spiral pattern:

Next was to paint the darks:

I tried to get initial details in:

It was clear that I'd never really looked at a pine cone before. (!) As I paid attention to it, I observed that it must have opened out like a flower as it was growing, and that there were two distinct parts to each "petal". Rather than try to paint these further details immediately, I thought it would be better to work out what I needed to do to paint the petal. This observational shot shows how I approached it, first going way too dark and then finally LOOKING at it:

And finally it was time to lightly sketch in a shadow:

I hope you found this helpful!

Perseverance is what counts

Here's a shot of a calla lily that I did a few weeks ago. I like the shading and the fact that even the shadows read as "white" but clearly it could be improved. Will be working on it.

The Garden Gate

I was going to call this "Beyond the Pale". Maybe if I fix it up, I will. Our apartment has a nice little patio and the gate at the back has always interested me because it has acquired a really weathered look and I like to see the green trees behind it, showing through the planks. Anyway, I sat down this evening and decided to capture it in WC pencil.

Oddly enough, the photos that I took gave it two different hues and I'm not sure which I prefer. Will have to decide, I guess, when I decide to make a real painting of it. So tell me, which do YOU prefer? Oh, and I decided to post a reference shot of the gate. I often wonder how artists decide which colors to use when they're painting a boring brown or grey gate... now I have a better idea... the colors that just "make it right".

And yeah... the blue flowers have to go.

Playing with WC pencils -- charts

Okay, I did what I always resisted doing with my WC tube paints: made a color chart, and have uploaded them. Here's how the charts read, left to right:

Column 1: pencil pressed heavily, forwards and back.
Column 2: pencil pressed as lightly as possible, once.
Column 3: pencil pressed fairly heavily, as though writing.
Column 4: paint taken off the pencil
Column 5: information about the pencil (brand and color)

The brands are:
Staedtler (no color or other info given)
FC (Albrecht Durer Faber-Castell) + color name + number
D (Derwent) + color name + number
D-Ink (Derwent Inktense) + color name + number