I did a colour pencil course with a very experienced tutor, Richard Klekocuik, this was with the Grampians Brushes art classes they run each year.
I like taking courses, you tend to learn a lot in a few days without a time commitment I just cant do while working. Also we were in the Grampians and they are pretty magnificent.
We started by doing some analysis of the different types of pencil and paper and effects you could get on each – rough, smooth, colour, white, using also blender pencils. There are a lot of different pencils out there and what you get varies with what you use it on.
We then did three exercises. The first was to colour a section on a small printed illustration, and then match the colour tone in grey. The second was a drawing we all did ourselves of scattered leaves – we all picked a section of ground – and coloured in a small section of it. That took up day one.
The last day i finished off the leaf drawing above (I picked very non standard colours on purpose, it was fun!) and we did the third exercise, a small picture based on a photo reference, only working on tone. So we picked three or four colours in the same general colour and just reduced the picture to tones. I’d literally never done that before. Really good to get your eye in.
So in the end i had three pictures, two days of intense colouring, a very stiff neck, and a hand that no longer could grasp. But I got a lot of pointers out of it.
My three works: