Monday 27 July 2020

Week 11: Rosalie, JD, Silke & Tina (wip)

The folowing are the Sunday evening submissions to Week 11, 'Shells' prompt:

Rosalie

 Rosalie has thought outside the box for her submission, creating a beautiful rendering of a Blue Marron crayfish. She says:
"I was a bit flummoxed as to what to choose this week as I don't have any shells.My partner said, 'well I saw a headline “Melbourne is a SHELL of its former self”... then I remembered the electric blue marron I had photographed some years ago - it was  checking out the view from some large river stones."
And of course, this amzing creature has a shell, it is a shellfish after all!
This has been drawn free hand in HB from a photo onto Fabriano Hot Press 300gsm. Rosalie has used 2H, F, B, 2B and 4B with the help of a silicone shaper on the marron and stylus indenting and a paper stump on the rocks. This is quite a complex and time consuming drawing, it took her around 20-30 hours to complete working in 4 hour stints over 6 days or so. Pretty impressive! As well as very creative.
The only suggestion I would make regarding this wonderful work is that perhaps the rocks are perhaps a bit too close tonally to the marron and could be a shade or two lighter to bring the marron out at bit more? or not - your choice Rosalie, a great work.

'Armoured Guard' by Rosalie

JD
A very nice group of three shells is JD's submission this week. JD has a large collection of shells and has drawn this from life using Faber Castell graphite pencils 4B, 2B, B, HB, & 2H in her Windersor Newton visual diary - heavyweight 200gsm smooth.
Excellent shapes and attention to detail here, particularly on the left Conch and the bottom Cowrie. The Spiked Conch on the right is a bit confused - it a tricky shape to draw - but it still conveys the right form. The Cowrie could use a little more tone with a soft F or H fill to create a more 3D form as discribed in an earlier post for KD's shell. The tricky things with shells is to not get overwhelmed by the surface striations and whorls and ridges and ignore the shading. That said, I think you should still be rightly pleased with these studies, they are very well done and observed.


Silke

Silke has been very taken with drawing in sanguine and sepia pencils and has drawn a lovely collection of shells she collected on a camping trip with these pencils in her journal. I like how she has carefully selected three different typs of shells to show - a bivalve (scallop), a gastropode mollusc (snail) and a conch style shell. Her work shows the different forms allowing us to compare the shapes. I feel the cast shadow is quite dark and I would like to see its' edges softed slightly. As the cast shadow is so dark some of this intensity should possibly be included in the interior shadow of the conch. The shell shapes are well observed and rendered and placed in a very pleasing composition. Did you realise that this compostion is in a Fibbonacci spiral, Silke? Clever girl. 

'Holiday finds' by Silke

It's a Fibbonacci!

Tina -  WIP

Tina showed me her work in progress (WIP), and I like it so much I asked if I could post it for you to see even in this unfinished state.  What you see here is an underpainting done in Inktense pencils of sea urchins Tina has collected from her local beach. Her next step will be adding dry pencil and detail on top of this wash stage. The work shows a lot of promise already!

'Sea Urchins' WIP by Tina showing Inktense wash stage on top and photo reference used below

*NOTE* Week 11 submissions are now closed, but don't forget Week 12 prompt!




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