Big Drawing, and Colour Magic (colour isolating)

Had a lovely Big Drawing Day in Dublin yesterday, with a very well behaved bunch of students, hardly any huffing, and all smiles at the end. They did the best colour pencil cherries ever. Sadly, my in-house photographer (son) wasn't in the mood so I have no shots of the cherries. Well, he took one from far away, so it was mostly a close-up of a kitchen roll, with some serious-looking students in the distance, and my back side in between. Which I'll spare you. But here they are doing some mushrooms in charcoal.

                                                   Meantime, here's my new favourite toy....

Fabulous isn't it...? AND, I made it myself - you'd never know! It's to isolate colour, a fabulous little device for when you're struggling to get it right. In this example, of white objects, its a handy way to see the colours that are really there, rather than what we Think are there. All the colour spots you can see are of part of the white object... but they're pink! Or is it orange...? Yummy. 

But this (below) is the best way to hold it - so that you are blocking out your view of everything except the colour - this way your eye is not distracted and your brain isn't going into But-It's-White overdrive. Dare you to make one, it'll take 3 seconds. Take a piece of grey paper, A4 (bigger than this example) and make two holes with a paper punch. Voila. You'll never see colour the same way again. 

Next up, Oil painting workshop, Belfast.