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| EAGLE 18X24 Prismacolor on Gray canson paper Private collection When I first approached this still life the blanket worried me. It was the first drapery I'd ever done in color. Working in colored pencil is a lot harder than working with charcoal or even oils. With Prismacolor you can't go dark to quickly otherwise you get a heavy wax buildup so you must slowly add on your color until you achieve the proper hue. What I try to capture in all my drawings is the reflection that is visable in the real thing. Many times my Art Professor has told me that simple is better. That I can hint at the reflection but I don't necessarily need to do detail. Well I'm afraid I never listen to him in that respect. If I see the pattern in the blanket mirrored in the vase I try to show it in detail. If you look closely you can see the pattern repeated on the bottom of the vase. I recently sold this work. One that I am extremely proud of because the blanket turned out so well. I also loved the eagle so much that I have a seperate oil painting of just it. I would have included the beautiful vase but alas the vase was broken. |
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| Thumbnail sketch of the above drawing. In all drawing and painting it is wise to do a thumbnail sketch first before you tackle the bigger picture. Some people prefer to just dive right in and start with the big one but I can tell you from experience that it you can get your pieces layed in properly on the bigger one if you do a rough sketch of it first. This way you can make sure all your objects are aligned. |
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| Simple study of just the eagle. When in doubt do a study of the object you aren't sure of. I wasn't possitive that I could actually capture the eagle so I started drawing the bird by itself on a spare sheet paper. The main purpose of doing this was to get the shape of the bird down right. I actually like the finished bird better than the one above. I'm considering having a little fun with the above scan by using Photoshop to do a little "altering" of the picture. |