Hi Doug. I see that you have rendered a beautiful pear of the same variety I’m presently doing. Your colours seem so fresh and there is absolutely no smudgy toning that so many of my drawings have. I would love to get advice on how to achieve that freshness while giving the fruit a 3D feel.
Hi Patricia- these are great subjects! It looks like you have used earth green for the grisailles, which is a good choice. First off, a couple of things I would point out about the drawing. The drawing of the pear on the left looks quite different than the actual pear. The top of the actual pear is wider and I also do not see the bottom view of the pear you have shown. I would make corrections to those areas. I would also have the pears overlap as they do in the picture rather than just touching. The overlap is more pleasing to the eye. If you are going to have a reflected light, be sure to leave the area along the right edge and bottom light and do the darker toning above that. Once I have the grisailles done I proceed to the watercolor pencils. I leave a wide, white area for the highlight. I will add color with color pencil to perfect the highlight later on. I use the respective watercolor pencils in the appropriate areas. For example, with the pear on the right, I would use a gold watercolor pencil on the bottom and top where the pear is gold and a rosy colored watercolor pencil for the majority of the pear, which is that rosy color. Areas of green on the gold areas are small enough that you can add that on with color pencil. You might have to mix the watercolors to get a good color or you may be able to achieve it with the watercolor base and color pencil on top. I play around with this in scrap paper beforehand so I am not experimenting on the drawing. Also I err on the side of the color being lighter and/or brighter because you can make the color darker with the color pencils. You can also use an ivory color pencil on top of color pencil to blend colors together. You then add color back on top for a usually brighter effect. I hope this information helps! Let me know if you have any questions.
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Hi Doug. I see that you have rendered a beautiful pear of the same variety I’m presently doing. Your colours seem so fresh and there is absolutely no smudgy toning that so many of my drawings have. I would love to get advice on how to achieve that freshness while giving the fruit a 3D feel.
@doug-milne
Hi Patricia- these are great subjects! It looks like you have used earth green for the grisailles, which is a good choice. First off, a couple of things I would point out about the drawing. The drawing of the pear on the left looks quite different than the actual pear. The top of the actual pear is wider and I also do not see the bottom view of the pear you have shown. I would make corrections to those areas. I would also have the pears overlap as they do in the picture rather than just touching. The overlap is more pleasing to the eye. If you are going to have a reflected light, be sure to leave the area along the right edge and bottom light and do the darker toning above that. Once I have the grisailles done I proceed to the watercolor pencils. I leave a wide, white area for the highlight. I will add color with color pencil to perfect the highlight later on. I use the respective watercolor pencils in the appropriate areas. For example, with the pear on the right, I would use a gold watercolor pencil on the bottom and top where the pear is gold and a rosy colored watercolor pencil for the majority of the pear, which is that rosy color. Areas of green on the gold areas are small enough that you can add that on with color pencil. You might have to mix the watercolors to get a good color or you may be able to achieve it with the watercolor base and color pencil on top. I play around with this in scrap paper beforehand so I am not experimenting on the drawing. Also I err on the side of the color being lighter and/or brighter because you can make the color darker with the color pencils. You can also use an ivory color pencil on top of color pencil to blend colors together. You then add color back on top for a usually brighter effect. I hope this information helps! Let me know if you have any questions.