Continuing with our tonal exploration, this week I introduced the students to Macro drawing; to take a small area of a subject and enlarge it up, concentrating on the small details and tonal variations. Our subject once again was a capsicum. This is such a great subject to draw as you can really explore the tones and shine of the flesh, and the darks and lights of the interior.
To begin use a viewfinder to zero in on the chosen area of our capsicum. I managed to find some very old 35mm slide mounts (old school!), but you could easily create your own viewfinder with a cardboard cutout.
Zero in your chosen area.
As a backup to your viewfinder, you can also take a snap on your phone or camera and then crop it accordingly in one of the photo apps. However, I don't recommend relying on this photo for your tonal work as you can lose a lot of detail and variation in a photo. Use it as a backup to check shapes against the actual capsicum.
Phone photo crop of chosen area.
Plan your work. Using an area of around A4 size on an A3 sheet of 300gsm Hot Press paper, very lightly sketch out a general shape. Don't press too hard. Remember, you don't want heavy outlines, just a guide to build your tones up to.
Once you have mapped out a general shape, concentrate first on the darkest tonal areas you see. It is important to establish your 'black' first, and then adjust all your tonal range to that dark point. Once you have done this, start to gradually build up the tones outward from this point.
1. Progress: Dark tones established first. Shapes of seeds are created by negative drawing around each seed - the black makes the white shape. This work is all done with the Prismacolor Ebony pencil on Fabriano Artistico 300gsm Hot Press Paper, A4 size on A3 sheet.
As you work, you will probably find that your shape grows and changes somewhat. Don't worry too much about this as no one is ever going to see your actual reference subject. As long as it creates the impression of a capsicum you are doing well! This is also why your initial general shape lines need to be light and indeterminate - the shape may change and flow and if you had a hard black line it restricts you too much. Avoid creating 'wormy' lines of tones too. Build up and out in a circular way, not snakes or worms.
2. Continuing progress: If you wish to try a paper stump to smooth out areas of tone, be careful not to blend out too much. You may need to go back over the blended areas with more pencil to reestablish darks and depth of tone. But one good thing about using a stump, once it is nicely dirty you can 'paint' and transfer graphite to other areas to form light tones, as seen here in the white core area. Also, the smudges in the center near where the seeds rest.
This work took me about 2.5 hours to complete. I decided to add a black border to it to help encase the image and form an nicer composition. But you don't need to do this unless you like the effect. All the tonal work was created with the Prismacolor Ebony pencil, until the very end when I used a Staedtler Mars 2mm clutch HB pencil to add some over drawing and hatching work here and there. The drawing was fixed with Windsor Newton Matt Fixative.
The Macro Capsicum by Linda Weil © 2023
