Drawing stones

Drawing Stones

colored pencil on Rising Museum board

5.5 x 7.5 inches

©Ann Thompson Nemcosky

Here is what I have been working on lately in colored pencil. A collection of stones, or river rocks, that I originally intended to draw in graphite. Then I realized that I really liked the subtle colors in these stones, so I changed direction and got out my colored pencils.

After I had a basic outline of the stones in graphite on my board, I lightly filled them in with cream and light yellow ochre. I wanted to have an overall warmth to the stones, which is why I chose the warm yellows as a starting point rather than the white of the board. My image above is darkened so that you can see this step, however the cream and yellow ochre were lighter in real life.

Here it is as I began to fill in the colors of the stones. As I moved from one to the next I also went back to previously drawn stones and made small adjustments in color and value.

By now I was really beginning to question my decision to draw these in colored pencil. So many subtle color shifts in each stone. Working on this drawing reminded me of a project that I used to give beginning students back when I taught part-time. It was usually the first project using color that I gave during the course. I would have them bring in a natural object and their objective was to make color swatches of all the colors they could see in that object. Accurately matching color was part of their grade. There were the enthusiastic students that would come in with a colorful autumn leaf, or a dried flower, or a sea shell. Then there were those other students, you know the ones I am talking about, who for whatever reason were intimidated and wanted to choose the easiest object possible for the project, so they would grab a green leaf or a rock from the parking lot on their way to class.

As the students would begin to make their color swatches it wouldn't take long before hands went up for help from the ones with the green leaves or the rocks. The green paint in their tube looked nothing like their leaf or worse, when they mixed their white and black paint the resulting gray didn't even come close to the gray in their rock. So we would start looking, really looking, at their objects, and talk about warm and cool colors, how to mix them, and how to make gray besides using black and white paint. These students with the green leaves and gray rocks would begin to notice that there were a lot more color variations in their objects than they first thought. And oh, did they struggle with what was suddenly a very challenging project.

This is what went through my head as I was drawing these stones in colored pencil. Just when I thought I had all the variations of value and hue represented in one stone I would look again and see something else happening! I was beginning to really feel sorry for all those students that had to struggle with my color project, way back when. Of course, I do realize that they were the ones who probably learned the most from the exercise. Just like I was doing from drawing these stones in colored pencil.

Here it is again in its final state, same image as at the top of this post. I am happy with it now, and glad that I chose to draw this image in colored pencil after all. Maybe I'll chose a sea shell next time.