One more post about “Woman Reclining” and we’ll move on to something else. I thought I’d offer a brief “how to” describing the process of creating the drawing.
1. First I searched for subject matter. Since this was purely an exercise without purpose I perused the internet until I found an interesting photo.
2. I downloaded the photo, cropped it and tweaked the colors, contrasts, etc.
3. I picked the media – color pencil on white drawing paper.
4. I put down my pencil sketch using an appropriate color pencil. In this drawing a regular black pencil would have been distracting.
5. I selected a grouping of pencils I thought I would probably use: hues and their complementary colors. I’m never completely right and will add and remove colors as I go along. At the top left you can see some pencil scratches as tests to see if I like the color. I ended up using 11 colors in this drawing. Twelve including the white of the paper.
6. I drew this mostly upside down so I would have less to interpret.
7. Since I’m right-handed I drew from top left to bottom right to keep my hand from smudging the work. If necessary you can use a “bridge” to keep your hand off the paper but I rarely do that. I will often lay a sheet of paper over the drawing and rest my hand on that.
8. I began by laying down basic colors. I came back later with more detail and greater contrasts. I will sometimes use a workable fixatif between phases but it wasn’t necessary for this drawing.
9. I forced myself to take breaks. I set the drawing up so that when I re-entered the room I could see it “on display” and get a sense of how it’s coming along.
