Value Study - Summer Flowers: Clintonia

Preliminary Drawing

Value Study for Summer Flowers: Clintonia

Digital drawing, 600px x 600px

Today is a sunny day in November, very nice in its own right, but my mind wants to hold on to pleasant memories of summer wild flowers.

This drawing is of a lovely wild lily with small yellow flowers, variously called Clintonia, or Carrion flower, or Blue bead lily. The blue beads are the seed pods or berries of this plant, which are as startlingly bright a blue in the fall as the yellow is a shimmering chartreuse in the early summer.

How wonderful to recall things like this.

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Texture Study - Rocks, Ripples and Refractions

Preliminary Drawing

Texture Study - "Rocks, Ripples and Refractions"

Digital drawing, 800px x 600px

I always found what goes on at the bottom of a pond fascinating to watch.

Underwater, rocks and sticks that look so clearly defined on land get covered with a gooey brown blanket which obscures their features. On the surface of the water, there are waves and bubbles and patches of light which compete for your attention against the objects lying on the bottom. And where the sun shines through those waves, patches of light and shadow get projected, with reflections and refractions, onto the underwater rocks and sticks that are already barely recognizable.

It's a real game to figure out what you are looking at. And it's mesmerizing to simply follow the shapes made by the flow of the ripples back and forth. Surface and bottom. Bottom and surface. Light and shadow. Fascinating.

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Texture Study - Toad in a Jar

Preliminary Drawing

Texture Study - "Toad in a Jar"

Digital drawing, 800px x 600px

Sometimes while you are watching the ugliest things in the world, they become things of great beauty and fascination. Take this toad, for example. Warty and totally unappealing, dumped in a glass jar, no wonder he was so grumpy-looking.

And then, I saw the attractiveness of all those textures, the shininess of those deep, dark eyes.

Don't get me wrong, I still don't want to kiss the fellow, but I was pleased to release him into a friend's garden to start a new career keeping the insects at bay.

And he left me wondering if I could possibly capture the beauty of this creature.

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Preliminary Drawing - Lodge Bay 2 - Ice Edge

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series
"Lodge Bay, Labrador 2 - Ice Edge"
Digital Drawing, 800px x 600px

Edges or boundaries mark where one thing ends and another thing starts.

The edge of the ice is the place where liquid water turns solid. An edge is generally not abrupt but rather is created as a process. The changes at the edge of the ice are gradual and are subject to conditions like wind and water current and temperature.

This drawing is another preliminary study for a painting I have underway. The drawing is done in a technique called grisalle, featuring marks of black and white on a gray surface. I like grisaille because it enhances the sense of three-dimensions in the drawing, and because it emphasizes the details the image that I will eventually paint in colors.
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Preliminary Drawing - Lodge Bay - November Thaw

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series
"Lodge Bay 1" - Labrador
Digital Drawing, 800px x 600px

On a foggy November day, with late fall ice melting in the calm still air, I was enjoying driving over a new bridge on a new highway.
I suddenly felt disoriented.
After a moment, I realized why - this new road had brought me to a house I had stayed in many years before.
But I had gotten there by a different route and I was looking at it from a different angle than I was used to.
I pulled off the side of the road to enjoy the experience.
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Preliminary Drawing - Pinware River 5 - Rocky Textures

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series
"Pinware River 5, Labrador" Rocky Textures
Digital Drawing, 800px x 600px


Drawings are made up of marks of different sizes and shapes that resolve in the viewer's mind and suggest the experience of looking at something tangible - in this case, the rocky textures along a riverbank, above and below water.
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Preliminary Drawing - Pinware River 4 - Value Sketch

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series

"Pinware River 4, Labrador" Value Sketch

graphite on paper, 9" x 14"

One way for an artist to check that a composition will work in a finished painting is to do a preliminary value sketch in tones of black and white. The artist ensures that areas of one tone lie against areas of contrasting tone.

Textures and details are not important in a value sketch, just placing tonal masses so that the composition reads well.
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Preliminary Drawing - Pinware River 3 -Rapids

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series
"Pinware River 3, Labrador - Rapids"
Digital drawing, 800px x 600px

I realized as I was completing this drawing that a rapids is a waterfall inside a river. Wow!

For computer drawing, I use a digitizing tablet and stylus, and a graphics software that lets me use layers. In this drawing, I used one layer for the black lines, another layer for the airbrush gray spray and a third layer for the white background. Keeping each component separate simplifies how I work. When I have finished the drawing, I flatten all the layers together and save the drawing in its final format to use online.
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Preliminary Drawing - Pinware River 2 - Waterfall

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series
"Pinware River 2, Labrador - Waterfall"
Digital drawing, 600px x 600px

Over time, even the smallest waterfalls split open rocks and create their own erosion zones. This is another preliminary drawing for a painting I have underway.

This technique of creating an image in white and black on a gray background is called grisalle.
Grisaille creates an enhanced sense of three-dimensions in the artwork. Some artists use grisaille as the background for painting, because it gives strongly modeled forms. I am using it as a way to explore the way streams of water fall over rocks and break apart over obstacles in their way.
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Preliminary Drawing - Pinware River 1

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series
"Pinware River 1" Labrador
Digital Drawing - 800px x 600px

Water flows downhill, seeking its easiest path. As it flows, the water cuts its way through layers of rocky riverbed. Over time, at this place along the Pinware River in southern Labrador, a break in the rocks has eroded and become a funnel for the full force of the river.

This drawing is a value study for a painting I am working on. One of the tricky parts about painting water is that water tends to look like a mirror and not like a solid material. When the surface of the water is uneven, it reflects the texture of the surroundings to a viewer in unexpected ways. An artist has to take into account depicting the texture of the trees, rocks, clouds, as well as the reflections off the water. This drawing is a study in putting the lights and darks in their appropriate places to show these textures and surfaces.
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Picking Redberries - Digital Drawing

Picking Redberries
Digital Drawing - 600 px x 600 px

In other parts of the world, these berries are known as Lingonberries, or Partridgeberries, or Foxberries. Whatever they are called, these berries are appreciated for their tart, rich fruity taste and for their health-promoting nutrients. Around here, people simply call them Redberries, and they get out their recipes for redberry muffins, jams, puddings, cakes, breads and steaming spicy redberry teas.

I had the good fortune to go wilderness berry picking several times in the past few weeks, and besides bringing home buckets of these bright red beauties, I also brought back a store of ideas of images and stories that I want to illustrate.

I will be experimenting with my digital graphics tablet and from time to time, you will get to see these explorations. And if you have some Redberry muffins or Redberry tea at hand while you are following my explorations, so much the better!
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Bones of the Earth - Capstan Island Battery

Bones of the Earth - Capstan Island Battery
Oil on Canvas, 11 3/4" x 15 3/4"

detail: Bones of the Earth - Capstan Island Battery

No matter how ancient and impressive the geology might be, there are times when it is outstripped by the fleeting drama of the clouds and the transient character of the foliage in a scene.

Each of these natural processes take place in its own time frame and with its own cycle of activity. That's a lot to think about when you are looking at a painting!

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Preliminary Drawing: The Battery 1

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series
"The Battery" - Capstan Island, Labrador
Graphite on paper, 7" x 14"

The weathered cliff face of "The Battery" rises to a height of over 900 feet above sea level on the Labrador side of the Strait of Belle Isle in eastern Canada, between the communities of L'Anse au Loup and Capstan Island.

This astonishing formation is made of layers of different types of rock which settled at the bottom of a primordial ocean thousands and thousands of years ago. Nowadays in the summertime on this headland, we can see green and brown stripes of vegetation clinging to the hills, and in the winter, we can see blue and white stripes of ice and snow blown into crevices.

That we get to see anything at all is because of geological forces which pushed this mass of rock well above sea level as part of the Appalachian mountain chain, and because of weathering forces which have eroded this ancient peak into its present rugged form.
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Preliminary Drawing: Littoral 1

Preliminary Drawing for "Bones of the Earth" series
"Littoral" - The Strand, Red Bay, Labrador.
Graphite on paper, 9" x 11"


At the same time as I am having fun observing the erosion effects of the rocks in this area, I am also having fun with the technical names of the features I am portraying.

The word "Littoral" relates to a shore, especially the sea-shore, and most particularly in a coastal region, the shore zone between high and low water marks.

I suppose I could have said, "Rocks at Low Tide" but that other word is a lot more interesting!

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Bones of the Earth - Point Amour

Bones of the Earth - Point Amour
Oil on Canvas, 16" x 20"

detail: Bones of the Earth - Point Amour

There are a number of remarkable things to see at Point Amour. One is the lighthouse, completed in 1857, one of the tallest in eastern Canada at 109 feet (33m), and a visible landmark for miles in the Strait of Belle Isle. Another is a burial site of the Maritime Archaic Indians dated from approximately 7500 years ago, which reveals the richness of the marine environment then as it is now.

For me, I was struck by the "terraced beach" at Point Amour. A terraced beach is formed as seabed, that has been weighted down with glaciers, gradually springs back up after the glaciers melt, and creates a new shoreline with the water. Well, the glaciers are long gone, but there are beaches all along this coast whose profile shows the terraced look of their icy past.

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Bones of the Earth - L'Anse au Clair

Bones of the Earth - L'Anse au Clair, Labrador

Oil on Canvas, 16" x 20"

detail - Bones of the Earth - L'Anse au Clair, Labrador

For a long time, I have been fascinated by the rock formations that I recognize driving through western Newfoundland and southern Labrador. In some places there are towers of rock and in other places craggy cliffs or piles of boulders and rubble. Here, years ago, a forest fire opened up the rocky surface, which hasn't yet grown over again. It's as if the broken soil has exposed the Bones of the Earth.

Special Effects in Photoshop - American Toad

Special Effects in Photoshop - American Toad

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Post Process Digital Photograph, 800px x 600px
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Imagine finding this at the bottom of the garden!

As with yesterday's image, the post-processing for this picture involved cropping and reducing the resolution of the photo, setting up an edge mask and applying several filters, and placing the resulting image on a neutral background in another document.

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Special Effects in Photoshop - Twisted Stalk Flower

Special Effects in Photoshop - Twisted Stalk Flower

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Post-process digital photograph, 800px x 600px
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I've been exploring the capabilities of my new camera, which has incredible zoom and phenomenal macro features. Now to bring up some Photoshop tricks to match these wonders!

This is a photo of a "Twisted Stalk" wildflower, which grows in zig-zag segments, each segment with a tiny, exquisite flower, hanging bell-like under its own leaf.

The post-processing for this picture involved cropping and reducing the resolution of the photo, setting up an edge mask and applying several filters, and placing the resulting image on a neutral background in another document.

You can bet I'll be playing with more images like this!
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Contour Drawing - Touching the Surface with the Pencil

Contour Drawing - Touching the Surface with the Pencil

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Graphite on paper, 8.5" x 10"
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One of the challenges of learning how to draw is the exercise of "Contour Drawing."

When you make a blind contour drawing, your eye travels along the contours of an object and you convince yourself that the pencil in your hand drawing on the paper is actually touching the surface where your eye is tracking. You don't take your eye off the object, and therefore you don't get to see the drawing develop on the paper. That's what makes it a "blind" drawing.

This exercise is like practicing scales on the piano, it's not supposed to look good, it's just part of getting better as an artist.
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All Thumbs!

All Thumbs!
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Graphite on Paper, 9" x 11"
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When I was in school I used to doodle in my books. A lot of the time it was "thumbnail sketches," quick scribbles I made of my thumb. I liked the visual pun, I liked the escape of drawing in class, and I liked that I could erase the pencil sketch quickly before I was caught.

No longer - now I fill the pages of my sketchbooks with studies of hands, feet and anything else I am interested in observing.
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Linoblock Print: Pincherries 1

Linoblock Print: Pincherries - 1 - Planning

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Digital drawing, 800px x 532px
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Relief printing from a linoleum block is a technique that can be as simple or as complex as you choose to make it. I have a drawing of pincherry blossoms that I want to print in three colors - yellow, green and blue. I can print this from a series of three linoblocks, one for each color, or I can print it as a reduction print, cutting the same block down each time I change colors. The multi-block technique gives me additional colors, while the reduction print on one block is easier to register each time it goes to the press. I'm still trying to decide.

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Color Layers

Color Layers

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Digital drawing, 800px x 600px
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Colors put on separate layers in a digital drawing can be "mixed" differently, depending on the order in which the layers are stacked. When the colors are completely opaque, the one on top masks the one beneath, and so on to the bottom of the stack. When the opacity of the colors is adjusted, an artist can control the blending of the colors.

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Split Complementary Color Scheme - Tertiaries

Split Complementary Color Scheme - Tertiary Colors

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Digital drawing, 800px x 600px
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In nature, colors tend toward less intense and less saturated and away from stark primary and secondary colors. Nevertheless, when you find a natural scene that attracts your eye, you are likely to spot color harmonies within the dull and near-neutral colors.
In this image reddish-brown colors contrast with yellow-greens and dull middle and dark greens, demonstrating a split-complementary relationship.

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Split Complementary Color Scheme - Yellow

Split Complementary Color Scheme - Yellow

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Digital drawing 800 px x 600 px
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The colors in this image aren't fully saturated, which gives a gentle and peaceful sensation to the design.
The base color of this triad is yellow and it shows full contrast with the blue-violet and red-violet split complementaries. However, since the overall effect is high key or very light in tone, the line drawing is necessary to separate the flower from its background.
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Split-Complementary Color Scheme - Blue

Split-Complementary Color Scheme - Based on Blue

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Digital drawing, 800 px x 600 px
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In this design, the base color is blue, and the split-complementary colors are red-orange and yellow-orange. There is good contrast because these colors are fully saturated, and the effect is bold but more pleasing visually than a blue-orange contrast would be.
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Split-Complementary Color Scheme

Split-Complementary Color Scheme

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Complementary colors sit opposite to each other on the color wheel. To reduce visual tension while maintaining a good contrast in the design, artists can use the two colors adjacent to the complement of the base color. This is called the split-complement. In this design, the primary color red is the base color, and the split-complementary colors are yellow-green and blue-green.
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Monochrome Color Scheme - Green

Monochrome Color Scheme - Green

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Digital drawing, 800 px x 600 px
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The human eye can detect more tints and shades of green than any other color. I guess this is because we evolved in the trees needing to identify food plants and plants for other uses.

In this drawing, I used dark and middle dark shades of green, a saturated green and a pale green, plus a black line drawing to pull the design together.
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Monochrome Color Scheme - Red

Monochrome Color Scheme - Red

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Digital drawing, 800px x 600 px
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This is the final version of the monochrome image, with the four layers for pale pink, rose, saturated red and brown opened on top of each other. The black layer that you saw earlier is hidden.

All these colors are based on a hue (color) of red, with variations on their saturation (intensity) and their value (lightness or darkness.)
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Monochrome Color Scheme - Red [Level 2 - The Brown Layer]

Monochrome Color Scheme - Red [Level 2 - The Brown Layer]
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Digital Drawing, 800 px x 600 px
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I am working through the various color levels in this image, and placing each color on a separate layer. This makes it easier for me to see the effect of each color on the entire drawing, and yet make corrections, if I find it necessary.

This layer shows the brown tone in this design. Of its hue, saturation and value, the hue is red, the saturation is full, and the intensity is about half that of a brilliant red. That is the only difference between the colors brown and red, they're the same, but brown is darker.

Still more to come!

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Monochrome Color Scheme - Red [Level 1 - The Black Layer]

Monochrome Color Scheme - Red [Level 1 - The Black Layer]

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Digital drawing, 800 px x 600 px
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My working method for these digital drawings is to use layers to separate the colors I am using. I am finding that each layer has its own charm and individual beauty beyond its contribution to the finished drawing.

Although the basic hue in this monochrome image is Red, my starting point is usually a drawing in black to establish fundamentals of value and contrast, and to place the various shapes and areas of tone. So, from my work-in-progress, here is the black component.

There's more to come!
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Monochrome Color Scheme - Yellow

Monochrome Color Scheme - Yellow
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Digital drawing, 800 px x 600 px
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Monochrome means one color, and this monochrome color scheme is based on the single hue of yellow.
Other characteristics of color are saturation and value. There is only one saturated yellow in this design, all the other yellow tints and yellow shades are based on this one hue.

The background is a neutral gray, to provide contrast against the yellows.
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Analogous Colors: Violets

Analogous Colors: Violets

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Digital drawing, 800 px x 600 px
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Violet is a mixture of red and blue. Analogous relationships based on violet hues include red-violet, violet, blue-violet and blue. Combinations of tones of violets give a cool quiet sensation in a design.

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Analogous Colors: Oranges

Analogous Colors: Oranges
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Digital drawing, 800 px x 600 px
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The relationship between these analogous colors is with the hue orange, a secondary color made up of the primary colors red and yellow. These are all warm colors as well, and the red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, and yellow shine against a flat black background.
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Analogous Colors: Blues

Analogous Colors: Blues
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Digital drawing, 800px x 600px
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Analogous colors are related, they share a common hue, and they can be found next to each other on the color wheel. This abstract landscape drawing is made up of yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue, and blue-violet. All these colors contain a proportion of blue, and because of this relationship, they remain harmonious when they are used together.
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Color Triads: Red-Orange, Red-Green, Yellow-Green

Color Triads: Red-Orange, Red-Green, Yellow-Green

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Digital drawing, 800px x 600px
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A tertiary triad is made up of three colors which are each mixed from a primary color and a secondary color. The use of tertiary colors in a design gives a subtle effect and provides backgrounds that contrast strongly with saturated primary and secondary colors.
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Color Triads - Orange, Green, Violet

Color Triads - Orange, Green, Violet

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Digital drawing, 800px x 600px
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The color scheme of a secondary triad is made up of the three secondary colors, orange, green and violet. This combination gives an energetic feeling to a composition, but the impact of the colors is not as intense as from a display of the primary colors.

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Color Triads - Red, Yellow, Blue

Color Triads - Red, Yellow, Blue
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Digital drawing, 800px x 600px
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Most of the emotional impact of a design comes from the artist's choice of colors, sometimes called the color scheme. Many color schemes are based on three colors, called triads. The triad of red, yellow and blue is called the primary triad, because it is composed only of primary colors and it gives the sensation of being bold and lively.
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Cool Colors

Cool Colors

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Digital drawing, 800px x 600px
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For the month of June, I am concentrating on drawing using a digital tablet and stylus. There is some eye-hand co-ordination involved in this, and developing different methods, but in the end, drawing is still drawing and making-images is still making-images. I know there will be a lot of experimentation here, so we're in for some interesting sailing.

This image demonstrates a cool color scheme, using green, blue-green, blue, and blue-violet against a greyscale background.

Speaking of sailing, this drawing is of the Norma and Gladys, one of the last wooden fishing vessels from Newfoundland, built in 1945, used in the Labrador fishery until 1951, turned into a floating museum in 1973 and lost at sea in 1984.
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Warm Colors

Warm Colors

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Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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The colors we know can be divided into two groups - warm colors and co0l colors. We can place a dividing line on the color wheel between yellow and violet to identify these two groups.

We generally associate red, orange and yellow hues with the sun or fire, and call them warm colors. We also associate blue, blue-green, green, and violet hues with water, sky and atmospheric conditions, and call them cool colors. However, the perceived qualities of warmth or coolness in a color can be influenced by other colors near it.

In this drawing, I used twelve separate pencil colors, six highly-saturated colors from the color wheel, two browns and four paler tones of yellows and pinks.
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The Color Wheel

The Color Wheel
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Colored pencil on paper 7.5" x 7.5"
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Studying color relationships has been part of an artist's education for centuries, and the color wheel is a visual aid for exploring and organizing the use of colors.

A color wheel takes the spectrum of hues, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, in the order that they appear in when white light is split by a prism, and wraps them around into a circle. Seeing color relationships becomes easy using this chart.

Complementary color pairs (red/green, blue/orange, yellow/violet) appear on opposite sides of the color wheel. The intervals of triads of colors, such as primary colors (red, yellow, blue) or secondary colors (orange, green, violet), create triangles within the color wheel. And using a color wheel, an artist can easily identify analogous colors which sit next to each other, or warm and cool colors which fall on one side or the other of the color wheel.

Using color relationships in a painting or a drawing lets an artist select colors that will best communicate the intended meaning of the artwork, and the color wheel is an efficient visual aid for identifying those relationships.
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Complementary Blends 3 - Yellow and Violet

Complementary Blends 3 - Yellow and Violet

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Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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When colors are chosen and organized in particular ways, they can give a three-dimensional sense to a picture. Colors that are complementary to their background tend to "pop out" or to occupy a space in front of the background.

Yellow is a high-value warm color and at its most saturated, it appears to "advance" or be closer to the viewer. Violet is a cool color and at low intensity it tends to "recede." In this drawing, the triangle of bright yellow appears to be floating in front of its background. The background of the various greyish-browns resulting from mixing the single spectrum-yellow and spectrum-violet seems to fall back behind that central rectangle.

Knowing how colors behave in combination with other colors is vital when an artist wants to emphasize an area of an image, or wants to develop a composition that leads the viewer's eye through the picture.

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Complementary Blends 2 - Blue and Orange

Complementary Blends 2 - Blue and Orange

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Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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Hue, saturation and value are different ways of looking at colors. With complementary pairs, there are only two hues, just two colors, in this case orange and blue.
Saturation, or color intensity, is a way of noticing how brilliant or dull a color looks. As complementary color blends approach a neutral tone, they become lower and lower in intensity.
Value is a way of describing how light or dark a color appears.

The two hues in this drawing are blue and orange. I used a single blue pencil as close in pigment to a spectrum blue as I could find in my 120-pencil universe, and a single orange pencil, also as close in pigment to a spectrum orange as possible.

The colors in this complementary pair are at their highest saturation. They are as intense as the pigment will allow. When I blended the orange and blue to make different tones of browns, the saturation got less and less as the color got closer to a pure brown and away from the bluish tones or the orangey tones.

The value, or the lightness, of the orange is higher than the value of the blue. In other words, the blue is darker than the orange. As the blue and orange are blended, the value of the resulting brown also blended. The orangey-browns are higher in value than the bluish-browns.

Knowing how to use the intensity of the color to create contrast or emphasis in a drawing, and knowing how to manipulate the lightness and darkness for atmospheric or emotional effect are useful tools for artists.
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Complementary Blends 1 - Red and Green

Complementary Blends 1 - Red and Green
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Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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Many artists are interested in exploring the effects of colors, for example Johannes Itten, Josef Albers, Mark Rothko and Frank Stella. They have followed the path of scientists like Sir Issac Newton and J. W. Goethe in making charts and designs that demonstrate how colors interact with each other. In this series of drawings, I wanted to look at how many tones of browns I could make with just the two colors of a given complementary pair.

I drew a design that would give enough spaces to show a range of tones, and I repeated the design three times, for the red/green, blue/orange and yellow/violet pairs. The most highly saturated colors of each pair are in the center of the chart. I got them, along with the neutrals caused by blending those most-intense colors, by applying the hardest possible pressure on the pencil. Around the outside I colored a base layer of one of the pair of colors on each side of the design, with varying pressure on the pencil, from heaviest application at the bottom to lightest at the top. Then, I put a second layer of the complementary color on top of the first, with light pressure, to yield a range of tones of browns.

In this drawing, after coloring the center rectangle, I colored a base layer of red on the left, using less and less pressure in the spaces going to the top, and on the right, a similar base layer of green. Then, on the left, I colored an even layer of green over all the spaces, and on the right, an even layer of red.

The design shows a range of seven reddish-browns and seven greenish -browns, in contrast to the fully saturated red/green complementary pair from which they were made. It also demonstrates how the under-color influences the tone of brown that results from the blend, and how the most neutral of the resulting browns is achieved by a relatively even application of both colors in the pair.

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Complementary Pairs 3 - Yellow and Violet

Complementary Pairs 3 - Yellow and Violet

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Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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Yellow and violet are the final pair of complementary colors. Like the other two complementary pairs (blue/orange and red/green), these two colors show high contrast against each other, especially since yellow is a high value or high key color and violet is a low value or low key color. Like the other complementary pairs, yellow and violet also blend together to yield a neutral tone.


To set up this drawing I sliced a lemon into quarters, revealing the pale yellow fruit inside the bright peel. Then I arranged grapes on the same plate, showing dark rich violets and paler tones of pinky maroon. I used three different colors of yellow pencils and three different colors of violets pencils to show the colors of the fruit and the neutral tones of the highlights and shading in the still life.

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Complementary Pairs 2 - Red and Green

Complementary Pairs 2 - Red and Green
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Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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Red and green are anoather pair of complementary colors. Like the other two complementary pairs (blue/orange and yellow/violet), these two colors show high contrast against each other, yet when blended together they yield a neutral tone.


For this drawing I found a supermarket package of watermelon, showing a lovely rich saturated red fruit and a beautiful pattern of greens in the peel. Complementary colors in one item! I used four different colors of red pencils to get the range of reds and four different colors of green pencils to show the pattern of the peel and the reflections in the packaging tray.


By blending reds and greens, I was able to get the dark brownish tones in the seeds and the stem of the watermelon, and to suggest the shadows under the fruit.
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Complementary Pairs 1 - Blue and Orange

Complementary Pairs 1 - Blue and Orange
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Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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Blue and orange are complementary colors. Like the other two primary and secondary complementary pairs (red/green and yellow/violet), these two colors show high contrast against each other, yet when blended together they yield a neutral tone.

For this drawing I chose a blue mug, its glaze is almost a pure ultramarine blue, and a plate of orange sections, with the sun shining through the fruit to give luminous orange tones. I used only four different colors of orange pencils and two different colors of blue pencils on white paper.

The dark brownish tones in the reflections in the mug came from darker blue and orange colors, and the shadows on the fruit and under the plate are a lighter tone from the lighter blue and orange colors they were blended with.

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Color Variations 7 - Complementaries

Color Variations 7 - Complementaries

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Colored pencil on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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A complementary is something that fills up, completes, or makes something else perfect. A "pair of contrasting colors that produce a neutral color when combined in suitable proportion" is Webster's dictionary definition of complementary colors. Red and green are complementary pairs, so are blue and orange, and so are yellow and violet.

An artist who knows that 1) these pairs of colors show a strong contrast when placed next to each other, and also that 2) they mix together to give neutral brownish-grays has two marvellous options for working with color.

I pressed hard on the colored pencil to give as saturated a color as possible, and in the drawing, the ribbon of red, orange and yellow shimmers with a high contrast against the corresponding green, blue and violet sections of the background.
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