Drawing Prompt Week 3: May 10, 2020

Autumn

Challenge 1: A Leaf
This morning I looked out of my window to see that almost overnight the crepe myrtle tree had changed colour to yellows, golds and magentas. So this week I want you to take a short walk outside and find the prettiest, most colourful autumn leaf you can find and draw it.

Once again the choice of mediums is up to you, but I have done my examples in watercolour pencils with wash and dry techniques. You may want to try this in Inktense, Graphitint. graphite or regualar waxed colour pencils with or without wash or pastel/pastel pencil.

Note- especially for the pastellists- please scroll down to the second challenge demo.

First, find your leaf! This leaf drawing should take you at least two hours to complete, not counting drying time, if you want a good level of detail and refinement.
 Tape your paper securely to all 4 sides to your board, leaving no gaps (a 300gsm hot press is good for detail). Using water soluble pencils, lightly sketch the shape with a blue pencil then add some soft colour in yellow, red, magenta and violet - if these colours suit your leaf. Stroke in from the edges emulating the veins. Don't draw across the lobes. Avoid a strong or a heavy outline.

Then, with an Aquash brush or #10 standard round brush, gently stroke the colours letting them blend slightly. Again, stroke in from the edges and do not over work or over mix the colours. Dry the paper completely.

Once dry, add addtional dry colours as appropriate to your leaf. Here I use orange, yellow, yellow ochre, magenta, purple and blue. Using just the tip of the brush, stroke the colour again and let dry. 

Next using colour pencils as a dry medium , use a circular fill to begin to build up more hues across the leaf. Try and leave lighter areas for the veins if you can, but don't make them too thick or clumpy. You could also try incising the vein lines now with a knitting/crochet needle to help you keep fine light lines.

Keep adding and building up the dry colour. If you think it needs it, selectively touch with a wet brush here and there. Be careful not to wash all the detail away.

Add graphite to create tones and shadows. In this work I created graphite only leaves to frame the coloured leaves.

You can also try this in Graphitint pencils, although the colours of Graphitint are quite muted and you will not get the vibrant oranges and pinks of watercolour pencils

Another example

And yet another.

Your Week 3 play list: Eva Cassidy 'Autumn Leaves',  K.D. Lang 'Miss Chatelaine', John Coltrane 'Autumn Serenade', Van Morrison 'Autumn Song', Tom Waits 'November', Ella and Louis, 'Autumn in New York, The White Stripes, 'Dead leaves and Dirty Ground',  and one of my personal favourite Van songs, 'When the leaves come falling down'. 

Challenge 2; Autumn scene in Pastel Pencil

Why not draw a complete Autumn scene? Pastel Pencils are great to work with, quick and with intensive colour. You could also use soft pastels. For the following I used primarily Carbethello Pastel Pencils and finished with a Yellow and Orange Rembrant soft pastel. This was done on Art Spectrum Colour Fix Smooth A4 paper, burgundy hue.  Each photo has the pencils used for that step on the left side so you can see what I used to create each step. Remember, these colours and pencils are just suggestions, feel free to do it your way in the medium of your choice!

This is the view from my studio to my Crepe Myrtle tree.

 The finished work.

Have fun! I look forward to seeing what you produce this week.