Wax Bloom

Colored Pencil on Cream Mi-Teintes Paper, 8 x 10″

My first commission of 2008, finished. I was a bit nervous starting this one as I didn’t have any prior experience drawing someone with as dark as a complexion as Debbie, but in the end I feel like I matched it pretty well. Colors used were sand and yellow ochre for a base, burnt ochre over the base, chocolate, dark umber, black cherry and dark green for shadows, with terra cotta as a mid-tone.

I also used circulism for this piece, which I think suited it well. I first started experimenting with this technique with graphite drawings to varying degrees of success, but I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of it with this drawing. I’m not claiming I nailed the technique, just that I managed to not deviate from it over the course of the drawing.

As an aside, I noticed this morning that I had used the smooth side of the Mi-Teintes paper quite by accident. An entire week went by without my realizing it, so there must not be as much a difference as I had originally thought. Of course, at about the same time I noticed that she is holding a kitten in the source photo after an entire week of staring at it, so maybe we chalk both up to distraction.