Camp Creative Day 1

Tests, tests and even more tests!

First day of Camp Creative in Bellingen was great fun - a wonderful class of 12. Some repeating students and some new, a good mix and all very nice people. I worked them hard and they said they enjoyed it! We spent the morning doing a variety of colour pencil test using wax based (standard) style of colour pencil. Lots of work on how to use primary colours, complimentary, blending, layering, etc. Then they put all those tests together and drew a marble - tricky subject but I was really happy with what they all did. Here is my quick 15-20 minute demo drawing along with some pencil tests I had done previously similar to what the class did today:

Then I asked the group to do a more difficult subject - one of the many silver spoons in my Op-shop collection that I have brought with me. They needed to observe the shape and sketch it first in graphite, once satisfied transfer the basic outline to a sheet of hot press paper. Then to look for different cool and warm colours in the spoon, noting how the reflections affected the various hues. They needed to create these hues with layers of colour pencil, blend the hues with a white pencil, then add any required tones with graphite. 

They did amazing work! Silver is a difficult subject and they created wonderful studies. Again, I was very pleased with what they did.

This was the very quick one hour demo I did to start them off.

We also discovered the joy of an electric eraser for adding highlights!

More tomorrow...