Finished!
I skipped to the finish here, leaving out any more steps in the process. Sorry. Sometimes when you get into a piece its a drag to keep interrupting yourself to stop and scan. Like with this one. I just wanted to get it done.
I just kept going with more and more and more layers of greys, mostly, building up the colors and values until it was 'there'.
And because its in Ireland, it needed a nice bit of green grass to sit on.
I kept the pencils slightly dull, and let the grain of the paper work for me in making the stone texture.
This was done with Prismacolors exclusively.
I used just about all the French Greys, Warm Greys and Cool Greys, as well as Putty Beige, Slate Grey, and Ginger Root.
No Black.
The grass was done with Limepeel, Apple Green and Grass Green.
This piece was a fun challenge, since I usually do newer buildings.
(The two previous posts,
here and
here, document my process with this piece, in case you missed them.)
Next up is something with food.
I've started on the castle itself, after lingering over the sky.
This is an old stone castle, so its scruffy and uneven and has irregular color patterns.
Its tricky sometimes to keep the colors and values in check, and describe the form accurately. What I mean is, you have values that describe the form, like the light and dark sides of the building. Then you have the changes in color in the stonework, which sometimes fight with the light/dark pattern. You might have dark stone on the light side of the building, for example, which goes against the ideal 'light to dark' way of rendering something.
To add to it all, there are also cool and warm colors of stone, which ideally would be placed to enhance your picture; but since this is real life, those are usually uncooperative as well. Cool colors would be in shadows, whereas the warm tones would be out front. So here we're dealing with a good range of greys, which are all over the place, and I'm doing my best to make them work, and still have it look like the place its supposed to be (which is Enniskillen Castle in Ulster).
I'm using lots of greys (French Greys and both Cool and Warm greys) as well as one pass of Ginger Root to start giving it a bit of life. I'll continue on from here until I get it just right!
Another thing that can help or hinder your drawing experience are the photos you have to work from. Sometimes you get great photos, but more often than not, you don't. Either some nice person who has commissioned your drawing has gone out and taken photos that are: too sunny, too dark, out of focus, while its raining, with cars blocking half the building, etc. etc etc. Or you get photos that have been tarted up with Photoshop filters to look all glowy and warm in the sun, when in fact the building is as grey as old dishwater. And on it goes. So the challenge is to find the truth in there somewhere, and do the best you can to make an accurate rendering. It can be a challenge! Here I'm splitting the difference between all my reference and making the best interpretation I can.
You should write a CP book! These posts are wonderfully informative and helpful! And you castle is great! Congratulations!
i agree with Katherine...you do such lovely step by step examples for folks, i just know a book by you would be great! :)
p.s. love the castle!
thanks for showing the progress of your piece, I enjoyed it!