UKCPS

UK Coloured Pencil Society

[ukcps]

The UKCPS featured artist for July is Jaques Dominé. Read on to see how he produces his beautiful work.

Jaques Dominé

My main activity is black and white graphite portraits.

It is at the age of 17 that this passion for portraits came to me it has never left me. I have never taken any sort of studies or courses for arts/painting.

From 1999, I widened my gift by producing paintings of people, nudes, drapery and clothes etc. I became known by winning numerous Jury and Public Prizes at several Regional Exhibitions and Painting Salons in France.

Then from 2010, I started adding a few touches of colours to my paintings, using pastel crayons and rudimentary colored pencils.

In 2017 I realized my first portrait executed entirely in crayons (Tristesse colorée) (coloured sadness).

This desire for colour came to me by chance, when visiting the UKCPS website on the web.

When I saw the beauties that could be achieved with colored pencils, I was amazed and surprised. I didn't think one could achieve such level of realism.

So I looked out for the UKCPS publications on WEB, to know which equipment should be used, and j started.

My main activity of portraits in graphite pencil takes most of my time, so I have only done about ten colour paintings, including two landscapes so far : la dame de l'étang (The Lady of the Lake) and la dame Collonges (Lady Collonges).

It's so exiting to give birth to a landscape, but it takes me a lot of time (about 150 hours) because I like to reproduce the slightest details.

Now the technical side:

For each work I use the Prismacolor Premier, the Luminance from Caran d'Ache, the Polychromos from Faber Castell, the Castle Arts and some Derwent. Each brand has its specificity; the first two are thicker, but at the same time more fragile, while the Pylychromos and CastleArts are drier. Thus, I have 510 crayons. This allows me to always find the desired shade, since I very rarely superimpose the colours.

My favourite papers are Stonehenge, Strathmore 500 and Caballo 109. These papers show almost no grain and they are pleasant to use. The lead of the pencil glides and the colours spread out perfectly.

I do not often use the traditional eraser but more often an electric eraser to clarify a specific point.

When I choose a landscape, I like to add a fictional character to give a soul to the painting, to spark (suggest) a story in people's imagination.

I start by making a light pencil sketch that I can erase as the work progresses. Then I start the colour by zone like a puzzle, always from top to bottom and from left to right.

I have my own colour charts for each brand, so that (most of time) I quickly find the desired colour. For a landscape I don't need to set the exact tone. On the opposite, I like to engage bright or warmer colours. As I said before, I very rarely layer colors.

Then, I dissolve the colours separately, or between them, to make blends using Blender crayons and colourless alcohol markers.

To make a colour portrait, the principle is the same, except for the shading that I only do with a blender pencil, as it is easier to soften the blendings of the nuances of the skin, without leaving any trace. I always start with the left eye, then the right one, the nose, the mouth, and I end with the hair. If the hair is dark, I finish with the background. If it is clear, I do the background first, before I start the portrait.

The practice of crayons has given me a real satisfaction using this technique. Last month, I participated in a Plastic Arts Fair that brought together all the techniques (oil, acrylic, watercolour, pastel, drawing, etc.) and I had the pleasure of winning the Public Prize.

It was a great satisfaction to see that crayons can compete with all the other more recognized techniques.

For me, drawing is above all a pleasure, a passion. I choose my subjects, my themes, listening to my tastes, my wishes and my mood. Beauty, tenderness, sensitivity and sensuality inspire me, and I am delighted when such emotions can be felt through my art.

[ukcps]

The UKCPS featured artist for June is Galal Ramadan.

I use Prismacolor Premier, Verithin, Faber Castell Polychromous and Goldfaber Faber-Castell.

I find my inspiration from my love and fascination with natural and cultural matters and the appreciation of the basic elements of art and life.

My mission, as an artist, is to create out of the box art that tells a story and makes people look at the world in a different way!

My compositions are prepared on computer first, considering the size and materials that would convey my message.

I trace a print out the same size as my artwork. I then transfer the image to my board, find the mid-tone and start coloring in.

I work on small section at time starting with the main portrait (Eyes are first. It is most important). Then top left to top right in rows.

After I am done, I go over the details everywhere.

I was born and raised in Egypt. Egypt is a country rich with history and culture. A deep well to dive in and explore the unlimited art inspiration.

A year ago I started a series of artworks attempting to connect Egyptian history with tradition. History is the past and exists in events, memories and stories. Tradition may begin in history but instead of being a memory it exists in the present.

I am fascinated with people, expressions, inner feelings and facial features. As an artist I show that in my portraiture as much I can.

I would like to advise new artists to color pencil to be patient and dedicate time. First make sure you have the right mindset and motivation for success.

Colored pencil is wonderful medium to create any artistic style and therapeutic.

[ukcps]

UKCPS Featured Artist of The Month for May 2022 is Angela Matuschka.

Angela has kindly shared her working processes with us.

Coloured pencils are really very versatile. It's one of the reasons why I love them. I have tried many art materials, but always came back to my trusted coloured pencils. It is a pleasure to just pick them up and get started without having to clean up after the drawing session.

 

Personally, I actually use my coloured pencils for all kind of different projects. For some years I enjoyed drawing very elaborate Mandalas (Winter Jewels image). And I still enjoy doing that from time to time. Creating Mandalas is a soothing, beautiful process. The symmetry and harmony of the design nourishes the soul.

 

Then I strove to improve my realistic drawing skills and even wrote tutorials about it, like a step by step tutorial on a dormouse in Draw Wildlife or an owl in the 'Guardian of the Forest' tutorial (Dormouse, Owl or Squirrel image). Both were edited by Ann Kullberg.

 

Over the last months I have been enjoying experimenting and creating more freely. In this case I don't use any reference photos, instead I follow a theme like in this example, done in my sketchbook (Fruits iamge). I start with a kind of light underpainting, just playing with color and lines, very gently at the beginning. The image emerges then gradually over the following hours and usually has a very nice fantasy feeling to it.

It's a process which brings together many skills learned over the years, although at first glance it may seem to be quite simple, compared to the technical skills required for a photorealistic piece. However, I think, that the technical skills are only part of the creative work. There are so many other aspects which contribute to an artwork. As this piece is completely drawn from imagination, there was no need to render actual fruits correctly. Instead, the qualities of the fruits, like I experience them consciously and unconsciously, found their free expression. The intense color, the dance-like arrangement speak of the joy and deliciousness of the motifs.

It's so interesting to see which outcome develops out of these creative processes. It's always a surprise. Unlike in a botanical drawing (which I absolutely love, too!), the magic of nature here is revealed in a unique, personal way.

 

Sometimes I even start without any concrete idea/subject, but follow an underlying compositional scheme, beginning again with very light layers of colours and gestural lines. When working abstractly, it's certainly helpful to experiment and gain experience with the basic pictorial elements themselves, like composition, lines, colors values, rhythm, gestures. I like to do that in a sketchbook, where I can play with these elements and discover a lot about their characteristics. Lines for example can have such different qualities and expressions. It's really liberating to trust my intuition here too, to let the pencils do what they want and to follow the imagination, but still based on a concept to avoid a chaotic result. In this example, the whole piece is based on a cross-shaped composition ('Playing the Piano' image).

In abstract works the question arises as to how one can represent something that is not directly tangible. It's more like music then, evoking feelings in us that are difficult to translate into realism.

 

In these imaginative and in the abstract pieces I encounter myself and discover new ways of expression. The result would not have been made visible through a concrete realistic rendering or, for example, through a description in words... - as already mentioned, for me it's more like music. Experimenting with colors and shapes helps us to discover what lives in our heart and wants to be expressed.

 

I very much like to work in all of these different artistic areas, although I admire artists who focus on one theme over the years. I personally want to explore a variety of approaches and feel that they inspire each other mutually in my art. Therefore, I am very pleased that many of my works, whether mandalas, realistic, imaginative, abstract works, have been published in art magazines and books.

 

So let's explore and enjoy the colourful versatile world of our pencils.

[ukcps]

Delighted to introduce Robert Strange, UKCPS Featured Artist of the Month, April 2022.

Robert has kindly agreed to share his working process with us.

I am a collector, an organised hoarder of all things ordinary, unusual and colourful. This includes a collection of over 12,000 confectionary wrappers that I started as an art student in 1975. Collecting has had a great influence on my work as an artist in that it gives me a subject matter to work with and also a format in which to present my work. I remember visiting museums in Oxford in my youth and seeing all these fascinating objects in glass cabinets that were considered to be valuable and worth looking at. Especially intriguing was the Pitt Rivers museum, an extension of the Natural History museum. Its assemblage of fragments of history from far away cultures triggered my imagination. These included such ordinary things as cooking utensils and clothing to the horrific shrunken heads and enormous totem poles. As a result of seeing these ancient relics I started to amass my own assemblage of ‘things’ that I acquired such as packaging, comics, stamps, toys, souvenirs of holidays, postcards and so on. Of course I had no museum in which to keep or display them, and I was instructed to keep my bedroom tidy, so I used tins and boxes of various sizes to preserve my possessions. To this day I still have a selection that continue to inspire my art work including Christmas cracker toys, plastic toys from cereal packets, matchboxes, etc. all kept in Oxo tins, sweet jars or biscuit tins.

As an art student I discovered the work of Cornell, Arman, the Dada artists, the Surrealists and most importantly for me, the Pop artists from the US and Britain such as Blake and Hamilton, Jasper Johns and Kienholz plus many other artists who used ordinary objects in their work. I had found my contextual inspiration and was justified in drawing and painting the everyday items of life; and so it continues today.

For my series of Squashed drawings I place my found objects into glass-fronted boxes, objects that are discarded, forgotten, unwanted, lost or broken. The initial arrangement is random, just thrown in, but I then go through several adjustments to get a composition that helps lead the viewer through the drawing/painting. This can be achieved by colour, shape, size etc. but as all artists know, we have a licence to change reality as we see fit and if something feels wrong we can add or exclude things to improve the art work. For my ‘catalogue’ drawings, where objects are placed in columns and rows, I again arrange quite randomly at first then take several photos of the layout to see how they would appear in a drawing. Alterations are made to create a balanced final piece but knowing that I may well add or delete items during the actual drawing process.

I start making sketches of individual objects to prepare myself for the final undertaking. Mistakes can be made while working on the final piece but I try to avoid them as much as possible by finding out what challenges will arise before I commit to drawing. Of course there will always be unforeseen challenges but that’s what makes art so exciting and rewarding.

By putting objects behind glass I can then draw a 1cm square grid on the front of that glass which helps me to accurately enlarge the arrangement into a 3cm square or bigger grid which is drawn onto paper. I rarely draw from photos or trace as I do enjoy the process of looking and the challenges it produces. I tell all my students that learning to look is a vital element of being not only a visual artist but in any creative discipline. There is nothing wrong with any other process that produces a satisfying outcome, it’s just down to choice; there are few rights or wrongs in art. Having done all my prep work in a sketch/recording book, which I again cannot stress enough the importance of keeping, I commit myself to colour, usually starting top left for some unknown reason. I like to use soft pencils such as Parismacolour as they blend well, overlay colours well, give a rich texture and can be scratched or worked into without too much trouble. I also use Caren D’ache Luminance which is a bit harder but can be worked to a fine point without breaking, and for that reason I also use Caren D’ache Pablo for those finer details. I work on 350gms hot-pressed watercolour paper but do enjoy trying out other substrates so that I do not become too fixed in my choices.

When I worked on my ‘28 Odd Socks’ drawing I used all the methods as described above. The inspiration came from visiting my daughter who has five teenage children who are unaware what a drawer is used for and as a consequence have a vast collection of mismatched socks. I had just completed a drawing of ‘8 Old Baby Shoes’ that belonged to my siblings and myself which my mother had kept in a box as a memento (like mother like son?) and it was very successful so I was waiting for a similar subject matter to present itself when the socks arrived. I must admit that the ‘catalogue’ composition idea comes not only from looking at catalogues but also from a painting by Lisa Milroy I saw in the Tate ‘Shoes and Feet’ and then discovering that she did many painting using this type of composition with lightbulbs and other everyday things. Seeing other artists work is important for one’s own development and continuing development, and that includes looking at the work of our very own colour pencil artists. However, I lay a selection of socks on the floor knowing that I wanted a square format. “27 fitted’ nicely and so I drew a rough shape on paper of where the sock would go and then put the sock beside me and drew direct from life, noting all the formal elements such as shape, colour, pattern, texture, tones and shadows. However, there was a space too large for comfort in the composition that I kept getting drawn too and so I had to add another sock across two others which actually added to the overall final appearance. Happy accidents and a willingness to be flexible to change.

I am continuing with smaller pieces at the moment while looking for a larger project. My ‘Rusty Pinapple Tin’ and ‘Polo Mint’ are the beginnings of an idea for a series but until then I am busy exhibiting in Guildford’s Watts Gallery with the Society of Graphic Fine Artist, in St. John ’s College, Oxford with the Oxford Art Society and in the Castle Fine Art Gallery, Oxford.

[ukcps]

This month’s winner of the Ukcps FaceBook Member’s group banner is Carol Ann Doran with this wonderful South African Turaco. Carol has kindly shared some insights to her work with us.

Carol Ann Doran

Knysna Turaco

I drew this rather exotic bird in response to a challenge set by another coloured pencil group which was to draw anything South African. I had a flower or bird in mind so I searched the internet for some inspiration. Then I saw this, the Knysna Turaco. Now I thought I’d seen just about every bird and creature known to man, but I had never seen this bird before and just had to try and draw it. I thought the iridescent green would be a real challenge and knew this had to be the subject for me.

I researched the bird further on the internet, you tube and books and wondered how such a jewel from Nature’s Crown had ever escaped my attention.

Clairefontaine Pastelmat is my preferred surface for coloured pencil work and I decided that perhaps the Anthracite colour would be best for the dark background and the deep purple wings. My ‘go to’ pencils are Faber Castell Polychromos and I used this brand exclusively for this piece.

I was not wrong in thinking the iridescent green would prove troublesome. Luckily Polychromos have a good range of greens, so I tested just about every green in the set on a scrap of Anthracite Pastelmat. I ended up using a combination of Cadmium Yellow Lemon, Ivory, Light Green and Leaf Green. Earth Green Yellowish was used for shading and contours. Phthalo Green and Cobalt Turquoise were added to the mix to achieve the bluer feathers on the back.

I really enjoyed doing this piece even though I didn’t have a clue how or even if I would pull it off. I’m really honoured to have my Turaco as this month’s group banner. Thank you.

My message to all newcomers to coloured pencil, or anything new come to that, don’t be afraid to stretch yourself and experiment.

[ukcps]

Laleh Kamalian is another winner at the UKCPS Keswick Exhibition. She has kindly shared some background information on her piece Are You Talking To Me.

Laleh Kamalian

On the making of “Are you Talking to me?!”

As soon as I saw the photograph by Sue Cross Photography, whom I follow on Instagram I knew it would be my Easter drawing this year. Those cheeky eyes, and the serious expression on its little face would not leave me any choice. I messaged Sue Cross and asked permission to draw it, who not only granted it, but also very kindly sent a high resolution photo to me upon my request.

I knew I would use colour pencils, but I had to decide between drafting film or pastelmat. Fortunately I remembered my self-made and learned-the-hard-way rule of soft-on-textured/fur-on-soft this time and picked drafting film )double matte 0.005 PolyDraw polyester surface to be exact, as I know there is a debate whether PolyDraw is or is not a real drafting film). It proved to be the right choice. It was real fun to create all of that lovely warm coloured soft fur using all the brands of pencil that I own, including Polychromos, Derwent Lightfast, Caran dAche and Prismacolor.

When I am making a realistic drawing from a photograph, I try to follow the shapes, the anatomy and the light to dark values as exactly as I am able to. But I become more adventurous when it comes to colour shades. I tend to go for warmer versions of the colours and sometimes add some colours that are not even there to make it more exciting. I did the same for this piece ending up using as far as purples, greens, pinks and blues amongst the browns, yellows, oranges and reds, which in my opinion would not damage the realism style of the drawing.

In my experience creating fur using consecutive add/subtract layers (using Tombo eraser and slicer tool) on drafting film is quite straight forward. However I always find it more challenging when it comes to draw soft skin or shiny eyes on this surface. Drafting film does not allow many layers like pastelmat so one needs to choose colours wisely from the start. Furthermore, It is not really possible to blend colours on drafting film, therefore one needs to gently bring one colour into the next to create the illusion of a soft transition between the adjacent colours. That was how I managed to make the irises and the cornea shine or the inside the ears look transparent in this particular work.

The next decision to make was about the background. I usually like to add a background to all my portraits, human or animal, at least a plain coloured one. For this one however I wasn’t sure. I felt a background would reduce the intensity of the character of the hare. So after trying a few different backgrounds behind the animal in Photoshop, and asking my husband’s opinion, who is not an artist but has good critique eyes, I decided to leave it blank.

As for the title, the quote by Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver” started ringing in my ears from the moment I started drawing those biddy eyes….

[ukcps]

Gabriela Thiecke won Reserve Best in Show at the UKCPS Keswick Exhibition at Derwent Museum. Read what she has to say about her beautiful piece Canary Yellow.

In my artworks I like to zoom in on bold and colour-saturated subjects, showing as much detail as possible. Unlike Wassily Kandinsky who "applied streaks and blobs of colour onto canvas with a palette knife", I use more precise strokes of colour by applying pencil on paper. However, just like Kandinsky, I make those colours "sing with all the intensity I can."

'Canary Yellow' presents a picture within a picture if you look closely. The distorted detail reflections of the other cars and the surrounding landscape in the chrome took both an eye for detail and some imagination to accomplish. And almost my favourite part was drawing the little blips of colour reflected in the grille.

[ukcps]

Congratulations to Monique Castellani-Kraan for winning Best in Show at the UKCPS Keswick Exhibition 2021.

Monique has kindly share some background information on her wonderful piece Kisses in Blue.

I drew my first hyacinth macaw back in 2015, and it was wonderful being able to revisit the same subject again with “Kisses in Blue”. Parrots are honestly such a delight to draw. Their colours are bright and happy, and they have so much character. I will also always jump at the chance to get out my blue coloured pencils!

I started work on this piece back in January. After a long spate of only making miniature pet commissions over the Christmas period, which was slowly sending me into a spiral of madness, I decided to overcompensate by starting my largest drawing to date, at 40 x 50cm (16 x 20 inches approx).

As someone with a background in digital painting, I like to do all of my sketches and compositions digitally nowadays to transfer to paper. That way my expensive watercolour paper stays free of eraser marks and errant sketch lines. It saves a lot of time in the long run, and if I mess up I can very easily just print out the sketch again to start over. I don't know what I'd do without my iPad!

This drawing proved to be a little intimidating because of the size I was working at. I ended up setting it aside for a few months. You know that famous "fear of the blank canvas" we've all experienced? This one hit me hard. I got a tiny section of the eye and surrounding feathers done and then proceeded to swiftly run away, back to the safety of drawing miniatures! A few months later, I finally decided to stop hiding and to give this piece a proper go. As I got into the rhythm of it I quickly felt myself being sucked into that "zone" of intense focus - where time just slips away until it's suddenly dark outside and you've skipped a meal!

Now that I had finally got my toes wet, I was gaining confidence. Art is a bit like exercise - it takes effort and routine to get into the swing of it - but once I do, I feel like I'm flying! With every new drawing I'm reminded of just how much I adore coloured pencils and how fun the process is.

Translating the reference photo’s feathers on the left macaw’s cheek was proving to be a bit of a challenge. I could only stare for so long at the complicated mess of shadows without going cross-eyed - so I decided to treat myself to tackling the beak first instead. If ever you find yourself in a rut with a painting, look for the deepest, darkest shadows in your reference, and block those in first. You will have a much easier time once they're there. Here, the darkest shadows were the inside of the macaws' mouths, so I put my much-loved Polychromos black to work, blending with paint thinner in between each layer and tinting it with Luminance Dark Indigo to get it nice and deep. Now that the darkest shadows were blocked in, I would have a much easier time in the areas surrounding it. That shadow became my reference point for judging the values for the beak, skin and feathers nearby.

I used Daler Rowney Low Odour Thinner to blend my pencils in between layers, with a flat taklon brush. I primarily used it in the first few layers of the underpainting. The yellow skin on the beak was a tricky customer with this - my blending brushes had to be impeccably clean, or else I would end up turning it green with the blues being so close by. In addition, I didn't want the very pale yellows getting contaminated by the oranges that are in the shadows. I made sure to carefully wipe my brush off thoroughly on some paper towel before blending in small areas at a time.

Beaks are so much fun to draw! They have a lot going on, from subtle colour shifts, to chips and cracks and ridges. The texture is a treat for the eyes! Here, I started by creating a gradient of soft earthy purples, greys and creams in the underpainting. At this stage I used mostly a mix of Luminance and Polychromos pencils. For underpaintings, I like to go darker than what the final result will be - though some would say I go a little TOO dark (coloured pencil is technically a light to dark workflow because they are mostly transparent).

After blending it with OMS, and making sure it's still a little damp, I go in with my pale tones from the Derwent Lightfast, Caran d'Ache Luminance and Holbein lines. These brands are soft and have more wax than oil in them, making them very creamy and more opaque than brands like Polychromos. Because the paper is still saturated with paint thinner, the pencil melts as it makes contact with the paper, making it go on super thick, even though I'm only pressing gently. This is my dirty little secret for how I work from dark to light in all of my coloured pencil pieces. The paper you're using, of course, is paramount for this technique too. If you're not using a good paper, you're going to run out of tooth extremely quickly using this technique. This piece was drawn on Saunders Waterford Hot Pressed 300gsm- and I wholeheartedly recommend it!

However, I just want to add that if you have an area or texture you want to keep REALLY light, for example a large white crack in the beak, you should draw that in first before doing anything else. That way, when you put your underpainting over it and blend with paint thinner, the white detail you added first will show through, clear as day! (This is great for whiskers on cats and dogs for example) You can also use a ceramic cutter to do this afterwards instead, though personally I have yet to use one myself.

After finishing the beaks, it was time to face the feathers on the birds’ bodies head-on. As always, I block in my darkest shadows first and then my underpainting, giving it a good blend out with plenty of OMS. This is so that I don't get lost in a sea of repeating shapes. Without doing this, I find it's very easy for your artwork to end up all the same value with not enough contrast between the highlights and shadows. I also rough in where I want each contour feather to be on the bird’s chest with a dark blue, though I only very gently line them in with my pencil so I can still move things around if needed while I build on the textures and detail.

Once the underpainting is done I am free to start pulling out those details. I went feather-by-feather, preferring to go in with my lighter coloured pencils first, gently pulling out each feather’s barbs. After that, staying mindful of how the lighting is hitting each feather, I used my mid tone and darker pencils to work in between each barb, gradually building up shadows. I also glazed in shadows over this with a very gentle hand to give the overall shape of the feather form and depth.

It can be tempting to rush through areas like this where there is lots of uniform texture, but it’s important to stay patient and take your time. Body feathers especially can become indecipherable after a certain point, because they all overlap and merge into each other. Sometimes even though the reference photo is sharp as a tack and super clear, there is just so much going on that it wouldn't 'read' well as an artwork. So I used my reference to help me with the general structure and composition, and to inform me on how the shapes and textures should look. But I didn’t stress about getting it exact.

Once you have good knowledge of a subject, after doing study sketches and looking at lots of different references, you can be a lot freer with how you approach your final artwork. A lot of the colours, textures and feather placement in ‘Kisses in Blue’ were not there in the reference. I opted to go for a much warmer, cheerful blue. The reference I was using was also fairly flat as it was taken on an overcast day, meaning the lighting was quite diffused. I made my artwork brighter than my reference material, pushing the overall contrast between the midtones and the deepest shadows. I also found myself intermingling soft lilac hues and subtle teal with my Polychromos and Luminance pencils, almost over-exaggerating the birds’ vibrancy. I tried not to stress too much about feathers either - while getting the shape and placement of feathers right on wings can be paramount to a realistic piece, the same does not apply for contour feathers and down feathers. As long as you stick to the right shapes and sizes, paying attention to the bird’s form, you don’t need to get it looking exactly like your reference.

I try my best to bring myself out of my comfort zone with each new drawing. This piece was my biggest challenge yet – quite literally. I’m glad I pushed myself to draw larger than I am used to and I can see why a lot of coloured pencil artists like working at this size – while it is more time-consuming, you have much more room to breathe and fit details in, that would normally get lost in a smaller piece. With my choice of composition and lighting, I wanted to convey a feeling of intimacy and closeness with the birds that I don’t think I would have been able to achieve were this drawing smaller.

[ukcps]

Congratulations to Keith Wigglesworth for winning the UKCPS April Banner Challenge. Keith has kindly given us some background o his lovely work.

Keith Wigglesworth

The instant I saw that the monthly challenge was ‘Perspective’, an image from many years ago flashed into my mind. Standing on the sill of a very high window in the World Trade Centre in New York, with my toes touching the glass ( the sill was at floor level in case you thought I was some sort of vandal), I had photographed the image of the tops of skyscrapers tapering down to almost nothing at street level and thought that this would be an ideal subject. A long trawl through many old albums failed to find it ( although another ‘non-man’ look discovered it later) but I did find enough material for future efforts that would most likely see me out, Southport Arcade being one of them and which fitted the brief. I used mainly Lightfast ( currently my favourite) with the addition of Procolour, Polychromos, Prisma colour, Castle and a little Derwent watercolour pencils that I have had loafing around for years and not used to full advantage, something I mean to remedy in the future, although the thought of adding water is a bit scary, but nothing ventured, nothing gained eh? The technical difficulties had me head scratching a lot, together with no little ‘under-breath’ profanities, particularly as the sides of the arcade are of differing heights, with about 20% of the right hand image missing from the reference photograph with had to be ‘imagined’! The original image was taken almost 40 years ago when I had taken my Father, Father in law and our old Beagle to visit my late wife when she was in Wrightington hospital for a hip replacement and called into Southport either on the way there or on the way home. I enjoyed creating this piece which brought back many memories and will one day soon get around to doing the New York one!

[ukcps]

Claire Needham is one of my personal favourite coloured pencil portraitists. This beautiful portrait of her son can be seen in the 195th Annual Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition. Claire has kindly shared her process with us.

Claire Needham

The portrait is an exploration of my relationship with my son Max, who is on the Autism Spectrum. I have tried conveying the balance that is sometimes his sense of detachment from myself and his surroundings, alongside his very loving nature. This can be seen in some of his subtle traits such as the lack of eye contact and the distant gaze; while his passive expression, slightly hunched shoulders and lighting across his face introduce that sense of warmth and vulnerability.

This portrait has been one of my most successful works to date, it was selected for the July 2020 edition Ann Kullberg’s Color Magazine Pencil Box submissions, juried in the UKCPS Annual Exhibition 2020 and is currently in the 195th RSA Annual Exhibition 2021. I am by no means a master of the coloured pencil; in fact I still am very much a novice only starting to use the medium in the New Year of 2020. The portrait of ‘Max’ was only the third one I had done up to that point using coloured pencil and it was very much a case of learning what worked as I went. I followed all the advice I picked up from UKCPS forums/members, read the book ‘Colored Pencil Painting Portraits’ by Alyona Nickelsen, binge watched YouTube videos and had a go.

I paid attention to building up light layers, while also experimenting with Brush and Pencil blending powder. I tried to look very closely at his face to see the spectrum of colours in his skin tone. I found there were a lot of purples and greens, and by using these colours during the layering of the pencils I was able to create a depth and realistic tone to his complexion. I am also a big fan of chiaroscuro in artwork, the use of strong contrasts between light and dark. In this instance I deliberately set Max against a dark background, framing his face, and making his features more prominent and adding a sense of drama to the piece.

Ultimately, I think the success behind this drawing is the emotive presence of the subject and I hope the fact it was labour of love really comes across to the viewer.

[ukcps]

Alison Stokes has won the UKCPS Monthly Banner Challenge. She has very kindly told us some of the background to her lovely piece.

Alison Stokes

When I thought about the brief for this month’s challenge, (what happens on a farm in March), an image of Chicks popped into my head immediately! Spring to me is all about new life & new beginnings, so when I saw the photo by Cocoparisienne on Pixabay I felt compelled to draw it. I made some slight changes in my rendition, as the original photo showed a yolk still in the egg, but I wanted it to appear as if the chicks were new hatchlings, so I left that out.Also the photo had a yellow background and I decided I wanted some contrast so I chose to use light grey pastelmat for the surface. I selected Derwent lightfast pencils to give the chicks lots of layers & impression of fluffiness. I also used the lightfast pencils for the base layers of the eggs, but then went over that with a burnt ochre luminance pencil to give the eggshell a smoother appearance. To create the shadows in the picture I used a dark indigo & midnight black lightfast pencil because I wanted to offset the yellowness of the chicks with a blueish tone- I thought that black on its own would be too harsh. Happy Easter to you all.🐣

[ukcps]

This beautiful green woodpecker is by Nick Day who has kindly agreed to tell us more about his approach.

Nick Day

The preparation sketches for this piece were taken in a beech wood where I knew there were nest sites for the Green Woodpecker. Then back to the studio.....I wanted to concentrate on the wood of the tree and the feathers of the bird, to show how lines, dots & broken lines, can simply illustrate the complex beauty of nature...this technique has been used in printmaking for centuries. Starting with a rough sketch in soft pencil I outlined my composition. I then start 'embossing' the lines into the linen board from the outside-in, as al the lines have to lay over each other (like tiles on a roof). The colour is then layed over the top with dry-point and polychromos pencils, using the most pale colours first. The whole process is quite technical and takes many hours of practise.....needless to say, you have to know the anatomy of your subjects....

[ukcps]

Judith Heilbronn Crown has won the People’s Vote Award in the UKCPS Inside the Lines 4 competition. We asked her to tell us more about her beautiful work.

Judith Crown

The source photograph for this was taken on a walk between Leamington Spa and Warwick a few years ago. I started beside the canal, and when the canal went across the bridge over the river, I went down the steps and continued along the river. The sun shone, and the Autumn colours of early November were glorious. The scenery changed constantly, and finally the river passed under the bridge near Warwick Castle, and I could walk no further by the river. I had taken quite a lot of photographs on this lovely walk, and I think the source for this might be my favourite.

The paper is UART Dark 400, which I love using. It is fast to work on, and light colours glow on it! It is best for pictures that have a lot of dark, and need good contrast. I used a mixture of pencils, though I think it is probable that it was mostly Derwent Coloursoft and Lightfast with a little of other types including the Caran d'Ache Luminance.

[ukcps]

Winner of the December Monthly Banner competition was Kevin Quick. This is what he has to say about his beautiful artwork.

The piece I entered into the UKCPS’s December monthly themed challenge was inspired as a result of two other long standing interests that I have, namely photography and an interest in steam engines and more specifically road steam engines. As a result of the latter, I attend many steam rallies around the country and when I go I take my camera with me and take many photos (that is when coronavirus isn’t an issue!). When taking the photos I am also thinking about the possibility of using them for a drawing too at a later date, so will perhaps capture a scene with that in mind. So when seeking inspiration for my next drawing, I often look through my steam rally photos.

When it comes to drawing I am very much an amateur and completely self-taught and I see myself very much on a learning curve. As a result, so far, when I start a new picture I chose it so that it challenges me in new ways. At the time my drawing of General Gough was the largest drawing I had attempted (33 x 22 cm) and was a complete scene which in addition to the very complex engine in the foreground had a line of steam engines and fairground rides in the background, not to mention a number of people too.

When doing my drawings, as they do invariably contain a lot of detail, I have found that I prefer to use a very smooth paper and in this case it was Canson Bristol board and for colour pencils I use Faber Castell Polychromos as I have found them good for detail, although in the picture of General Gough I did in addition use some Caran D'Ache Pablo and Luminance pencils. To start a picture off, I use a grid technique as a guide to generate an initial detailed outline sketch. I do that using Adobe Photoshop’s grid tool to overlay a grid over the photo on my computer. As the picture I was drawing was very detailed, I used a grid with quite small squares. It is then a matter of calculating what size the squares need to be on the paper so that the picture will fit nicely. When drawing the grid on to the paper I use just the weight of the pencil to draw the lines i.e. so they are as lightly applied as possible and will erase later without leaving a trace as the outline is drawn. I think this approach may not be the quickest way to generate the outline but I get quite a bit of satisfaction drawing it by this method. At this point I always come to one of the more difficult points for me in the process and that is to take the plunge and actually start applying the colour pencils. For this scene I think I basically started at the top and worked down to the bottom and being right handed, worked from left to right on the way down keeping a clean sheet of paper under my hand to try and keep the picture as clean as possible. At the same time as doing the drawing I had the Photoshop zoomed in on the corresponding area of the original photo and when necessary I would use the colour picker tool in Photoshop to sample the colour in the photo to get a better idea of what pencil(s) to use on the drawing.

In this picture the background detail was quite challenging as the fairground rides and the steam engines in the background were small, so applying lines and highlights to give the right impression of the detail was difficult but I am very happy with the end result. When drawing the main engine itself drawing all the wheels and spokes was perhaps the most challenging part especially when drawn freehand (I wonder if others use rules and curve tools when doing such things…?). Finally, one of the things that probably brings this picture to life in my view is that the photo was taken on a beautifully sunny day, so the main engine casts a lovely shadow on the ground and combined with the perspective of the road it is on helps give depth to the finished picture.

[ukcps]

France Bauduin was Highly Commended in the UKCPS online Inside the Line 4 exhibition. This is what she tells us about her piece.

France Bauduin

Most people know me as the “Cat Lady” for yes, I am cat mad, raised about 75 kittens at home over 15 years. These were then the source of my inspiration for my colour pencil drawings.

Once my queens retired, I needed new subjects and turned to big cats: leopards, pumas, lions, tigers and such. But then to grow, you need to challenge yourself so when we were in lock-down, I decided to try something totally out of my comfort zone.

Still an animal but not a furry one: a reptile, an iguana to be precise. While accustomed to work with brown, ochres and beiges, I had to reacquaint myself with turquoises, aquas, blues, greens, purples and bring oranges as well as reacquainting myself with the black Colourfix Smooth paper I used for this as my latest drawings had all been done on brown Pastelmat board.

Technically, this was without a doubt, the most difficult drawing I have ever done as not only did I need to get the colours right for each scale, I also needed to get the right 3-D shape, (most of them are tiny pyramids) and the size without losing the patterns they create on the body. You may think these scales are more or less even but there is nothing furthest away from the truth. They constantly change size and shape, getting bigger or smaller, while forming rows that curve alongside the body.

I had to use markers on both my reference photo and drawing in order not to lose my place and kept counting the number of scales to check that they matched. A tiny difference in size would accumulate and the first thing you knew, you had one too many scale, or missing one which created a discrepancy in the pattern of the diagonal lines they formed. Progress was very slow, it took me 265 hours over 3 1/2 month to complete it but it was worth it. I entered it a competition from LightSpaceTime in August and it won a merit in their 4th Patterns Art exhibition among mostly abstract artworks. It also won an honorable mention in the Colored Pencil Magazine annual competition but the one I am most proud is that honourable mention I got from the Inside the Lines 4 competition.

[ukcps]

Paco Martín was Highly Commended in the UKCPS Inside the Lines 4 online exhibition. We asked home to tell us more about his piece, Sweet Temptation.

Paco Martin

I have always liked to draw honey, but I never tried it with a black background. It was a real challenge. When I looked at the picture, I loved the yellows and oranges, and I was mesmerized by both its stickiness and reflections at the same time. Definitely, I was dazzled by the texture of the wood. Mostly, I used Polychromos and a couple of Derwent Lightfast pencils, because the nuances were perfect. As for the paper, I used Caballo 109 paper, it's perfect, smooth and 250g. Getting a deep black background is always a difficult task to accomplish. I applied loads of coats of Polychromos and for the very last one I used an Albrecht Dürer black pencil. After that, the fixative enables you to enhance the colour, and in turn, it makes it more uniform. For the little shiny spots on the droplet, I used acrylic ink. This was something new, and I was really pleased with the result.

[ukcps]

Francesca Comparin was Highly Commended for her piece, Glitter, in the UKCPS Inside the Lines 4 exhibition. We asked her to tell us a bit more about the piece.

Francesca Comparin

When I saw the reference photo I fell in love with it at the first sight. I always try to find a photo to draw that captures my attention especially through some small particulars. These glittering and colourful stars were exactly what I was looking for. I really enjoyed drawing them; playing with their shapes and shadows and giving them the right light to shine. I completed this drawing using the superb Polychromos and Luminance on my favourite surface, Pastelmat. So, why is this drawing special to me? Well, I found the reference photo online but the photographer was not mentioned at all. So I did some research but it was all in vain. Later in August, finishing the drawing I was disappointed realising that I could never use it in any competition. I decided to post it on my Instagram account anyway. Than something magical and unexpected happened: the photographer wrote a comment under my post: “Heeey that is my picture!! So nice!”. I immediately contacted him asking for his permission to use the photo and I was overwhelmed seeing that my piece of art was appreciated by both him and the model too. It was almost the end of October and there were just a handful of days left before the deadline of the UKCPS Online Exhibition. I applied for it and I was extremely delighted knowing that “Glitter” was awarded “Highly Commended”.