We have a wonderful blog post today with artwork by Alan McMahon who is studying with Julie Douglas on the Coloured Pencil Certificate course.
One of Alan’s exercises within the course, asked for a still up along with submitting a photo of the set up, from the angle that he would be drawing it at. This meant that Julie could assess the overall shape, form, colour and texture of the artwork. Alan arranged a cup and spoon, as you can see in the photo below left, along with cloths behind for subtle textures to be introduced within the scene.
He was then asked to create a tonal drawing in pencil which you can see below right. Preliminary tonal studies really help an artists to understand the scene before the complications of colour come into play. Here we can see Alan was able to work out where the shadows and highlights were, how deep the tones were, the shape and form of the cup and spoon and also quite importantly how to describe the texture of the cloth behind.
Once the tonal study was complete Alan embarked on the coloured pencil finished piece which you can also see below and I think we can all say that it was a huge success. Alan has handled the delicacy of the cup extremely well and the overall colours are beautiful. Congratulations to Alan on a superb piece.
This is a lovely drawing Alan, well done.
Given your association on the UKCPS Executive Committee, I’m astonished that the Society isn’t providing all the support you need to grow and flourish as a CP artist – very well done, Alan. LAC provides excellent value-for-money courses without the hassle of attending an FE College or university fees. I look forward to seeing future work!