Tag: work in progress

Pratique—Day 4.

Progress: tail color blocking and underglaze. Tomorrow I’ll begin several days of fine line work to define feathers, so there won’t be updates until most of that effort is done. I won’t work on the head and eye until last, to keep those features crisp and clean. 

White-winged dove, Prismacolor pencil on toned paper, 6 x 5 inches (15 x 13 cm).  

Pratique: Excavation.

I’ve been a bit housebound lately, and when I can’t hike, I draw. For this skeleton drawing I’m using waxy Prismacolor pencils

to slowly build up layers of color

on vellum-surface Bristol board. The soft pencil allows for subtle imprimatura or underglaze effects. I’ll continue to block in color and refine line, shading, and tone, covering only about a hundred square centimeters a day. I’ve learned to stop once my hand becomes fatigued, or else errors accumulate fast. Finally, I’ll burnish the entire surface to a high sheen. I might selectively distress and dull the finish at the end, but that decision is still days away. It’s slow going.