Roots - finished

Roots

colored pencil on Rising Museum board

8 x 8 inches

©Ann Thompson Nemcosky

Here is the finish of the piece I showed here as a work-in-progress last week. This was a fun piece to work on, yet somewhat like figuring out a puzzle, what with all the different textures and dappled light.

This is what it looked like once I had the composition filled in with all the local color. I was happy with this for the most part, but felt it was still a little flat.

So I upped the contrast in some areas by going in with black. Yes, the black colored pencil, lightly over some of the shadowed areas to punch up the darks. I believe this was the first time I have used black in a colored pencil drawing. I usually rely on the darks of various hues to create those near black values. But in this case I felt that I made the right decision. I also warmed up the sunlit areas with a cream color. So here you see the finished version, same as the image at the top of the post.

Now it's off to the next drawing, or painting. We are enjoying these quiet days before we get back into our usual school routine next week. And our house is still decorated for the holidays. Yep, need to get all of that sorted out and put away. The new year is here. I'd better get busy!