So, I'd been watching a very impressive clump of toadstools as it grew in the garden, waiting for it to reach a suitable size to dig up for my students to draw. This week, it made the grade....
...and I got out the spade. It was a pretty slimey, slithery-topped variety but the individual stems came away happily enough, giving folks a selection to choose from.
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| A toadstool platter... |
Add a box of delicious coloured pencils, and oh joy of joys!!
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| Caran d'Ache, my brand of choice |
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| Ailbhe's lovely study |
Everyone worked on tinted card - 'white' is not a supportive surface to draw on. It is harsh on the eyes and offers a too-stong contrast, in many instances. The darker tone of the grey card gives a different, warmer effect and while it means that colours don't behave the way they would on white paper, we can quickly work out the differences and enjoy the experience.
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| Clive's work, next to the toadstools. |
We began by drawing in pen - again, this is not as scary as it sounds ('what, no rubber???)! The pen doesn't feel too dark going onto the tinted tone, and once a line is there, it simply....stays there!
It's actually liberating, not restricting.
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| A closer look at Clive's drawings |
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| Alison's drawing showing lovely colour blending. |
As the week went on, the toadstools began to wilt, so I introduced some large field mushrooms, which offer a different range of colours. We might, at first glance, assume that there is no colour in a mushroom... (tsk!!), but a closer look reveals soft yellows, pinks and even blues. And, as Paul noted, there's a lot of mushroom-colour as well!!
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| The Thursday morning class! Yummy! |
You can see from the photos how effective the pen is, in conjunction with the coloured pencil. The pen gives a strength of dark and helps the drawing to look confident.
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| Bernadette's lovely artwork - first time using coloured pencil! |
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| Suzanne's lovely drawing |
Adding a bit of soft white to the background area can help add drama to the finish.
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| Glynis's triumph! |
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| David's artwork is a joy of compositional delight, making full use of the paper colour |
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| Ken's lovely artwork - first time using coloured pencil and a great start. |
There were even more lovely drawings, but not all my photos come out so well, so I have selected only a few. A great subject, an interesting way of using the mediums, and lovely results.
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| Ewa's stunning drawing. |
Next up: Children's class, portrait workshop and oils weekend. For info email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk
My book, Notes from The Atelier, has now got 40 five-star reviews on Amazon! Available on Amazon, or directly from me (a bit cheaper!).
