Haring into 2018....
So here goes, my first ever Blog post...absolutely no clue what I'm doing and if successful I'll cringe if I ever look back at this but hey ho! So 2018...'New Year New Me' etc, a time for resolutions, one of mine, to draw a new wildlife drawing each month, and the obvious choice for me was 'Harold' the Hare. I was lucky enough to be chosen to paint one of the 2018 Cotswold Hare Trail Sculptures again this year so I figured a good reference guide to get the detail right and get my eye in with colour choices.
I got my reference image from Pixabay, debated for a while between a side on or facing image but I've been inspired also by the strawberry valley studio range of nursery pictures (see link) below
https://www.notonthehighstreet.com/strawberryvalley
which influenced my image choice but also my choice of paper - Strathmore toned Grey. I've always loved and been inspired by Georgina Kreutzer's work too, a coloured pencil artist who works predominantly on the toned grey/tan Strathmore range. https://www.georginakreutzer.com/artworks
I'm going to try and put in as many links to what has inspired my choices for each drawing as I go along, I've always found it incredibly helpful when artist share their thoughts and influences. One of the biggest influences this year so far has been the discovery of artist Amie Howard https://www.amiehowardart.com/ ..totally awesome coloured pencil artist who shares tutorials on Youtube, I'm looking to subscribe to her tutorials site shortly, she offers advice on technique and also equipment, I loved her advent of tutorials running up to Christmas. I'm hoping to enrol on one of her new tutored day courses, watch this space!
New big purchase of 2018 was the full 72 set of Caran Dache Luminance pencils, and I have to say I have absolutely no regrets. These pencils are superb, they also have a range of colours which beautifully complements my Faber Castell Polychromos which remain a firm favourite. So for the Hare drawing I used both of these brands.
I always have to start with the eyes in any drawing, I think once you've got that right the rest will flow, but get the eyes wrong and It will always look (quite literally) odd!
This is where the Luminance pencils really came into their own with the highlights in the eyes.
so a few of my favourite pencils throughout this piece included;
Faber Castell, Paynes Grey for those lovely cool blue grey tones, but also the dark Sepia for the brown grey areas. The Faber Castell Polychromos Brown Ochre, Naples Ochre, Yellow Ochre and Van Dyke Brown were also heavy used. I loved the Luminance Buff Titanium for the undercoat of the fur. I've now gone onto painting my Hare sculture for the Cotswold Hare Trail 2018, doing this drawing has really helped me with my colour choices in the painting too! They really are pretty transferable between acrylics and coloured pencils.
Using pencil strokes moving in the direction of the Hare's fur I continued down the body of the Hare. You'll notice the fur becomes longer and thicker around the body. Longer pencil strokes and a real focus on the lightest and darkest values within the drawing.
Whiskers - I went back to my Faber Castell Polychromos White for these, I find a harder sharper tip better for laying down the whiskers, once a decent grove is made in the paper it's relatively easy to work around the whiskers with the fur. I went over these areas with a white gel pen at the end to pull up the highlights.
For the darkest blackest values I preferred the Luminance black to the Polychromos, it seemed to produce a deeper colour again the paper, as the pencil is a more waxy texture.
My next steps are to photograph and seal the drawing ready for framing, next blog post continuing my Hare theme! Hare painting.
Thank you for reading
x Laura