Colored Pencils

I have spent most of my time over winter working with my colored pencils - I can't seem to get enough of them.

This first project is called Copper Still Life and was designed by Janelle Johnson (http://www.janellejohnson.com/). It is done on 11x14 hand-dyed paper that I got from Janelle. Last fall I took a course from Janelle and this was the project we worked on. I did not complete it during the course, so I have been working on it on and off over the last few months. There sure are a lot of leaves on this piece - I was glad when I finally got them all done. But, I can say that I now definitely know how to do leaves! The copper pot and lantern were very interesting and I feel I learned a lot working on these two items. To finish the piece off I added a rust colored matte and put it in a black frame.

This project is called Buddies and was designed by Pat Lentine (http://www.patlentine.com/). I did it on 8 x 10 Mei-tentes paper. I expect it will probably end up being a baby shower gift. This piece was a lot of fun to do and did not take a long time. I just love the expressions on the faces of the bears! I thought the fur might be time consuming, but, once I figured it out, it worked up very fast. The bows just seem to set the picture off. I still have to matte and frame this piece.

There are a number of colored pencil pieces I plan to tackle soon. I have several photographs that I plan to turn into colored pencil pictures. Since there will be no pattern, I will be winging it as far as the pictures and colors are concerned. It will be fun, and, I hope to learn a lot by experimenting and attempting different things with the colored pencils. I have a total of about 150 colored pencils, so, I should have fun deciding on colors to use.