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Sunday 18 August 2013

Working in circles...

Sometimes you get this wild feeling to try something out of the box, or an idea that just popped into your head. It wa a moment like this when I envisioned a picture composed entirely of solid circles!

It was very exciting I must say, getting to work, and every spare minute was fervently used to complete the drawing. I grabbed my sketch pencil and outlined the face and hair, then began colouring hundreds of dots from my twelve-colour pencil set. 






I loved the soft effect created from the gentle even pressure applied by the pencils, and how colour tones fade from one to another. I pressed a little harder for shadowy areas, and for lighter areas, used a combination of lightening the dots, as well as spacing them further apart. Some bright areas are virtually untouched. This is often what makes a picture stand out - contrast of shadow and light, and areas fading to nothing. A picture featuring little contrast will generally look a bit flat (very broadly speaking!).

There were many stages with this drawing, I felt I might destroy its delicate appearance, which caused me to hold back on stronger expression and defining the face better.

Let me know your thoughts on this piece, I'd love to hear!

2 comments:

  1. Very cool! a kind of pointillism, really. I think I'd like to try it sometime as well, as I can see how it would give one a very good idea of how you use your colours and which go with which etc. often, when painting, one doesn't necessarily know which colour to add to an area to achieve the correct blend, especially for darker areas.

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  2. Ah, pointillism - I thought it might have a name! The colour blending is very subtle yet clear, so yes it would definitely be a great colour-mixing exercise. I especially liked the blue and purple colour mixture - such a special deep violet... Sometimes I find it quite fun to try unexpected colours for shadowing, like dark green. Seems to be softer on the eye and more interesting. Thank you very much for your input!

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