Spring is in the Air ..... soon!

Hello Bloggers....

Winter seems to keep hanging on - did Wiarton Willy see his shadow or not???  Having enjoyed a winter vacation in sunny Mexico I needed some additional brightness once I got home....and Edward Robertson's photo "Slice of Citrus" is certainly bright and sunny.  The photo is Colored Pencil Magazine's March 2014 challenge.

This is a scanned copy of my submission to the challenge .....

Here are some behind the scene pictures of the process. Again, I used the grisaille method - sketching directly on yellow cardstock.

I used various shades of grey to create the "under painting" of values and textures.

Then it's a matter of adding layers of coloured pencil to achieve the desired colours and textures.

 It's a very time-consuming, but rewarding process.

I felt the picture looked too "cropped" with the yellow paper left as a border around the edges, so I extended the colours from the fruit into the border area and blended it with blending solution.

This is a photo of the final painting.  The photo picks up more blue from the grey pencils than the scan does.

Which version do you prefer - the scan or the photo???

Happy crafting!

~ Terry ~