This is the 2nd project I’ve tackled in my Arts & Fails series. Within the past few years, I haven’t done a lot of sketching other than the sketching I do to block out my compositions for my collages. I’d love to delve back into drawing and keep honing other artistic skills. So for this project, I figured why not attempt to make a colored pencil drawing. I’ve never been particularly good at using colored pencils. I’m also not the type of artist who wants to make photorealistic works of art, but I am interested in seeing how I can layer things to make my own representational drawing.
For this piece, I decided to draw inspiration from the Great Saunter, which I participated in earlier this year. If you’re not familiar with the Great Saunter, it’s an event in NYC where participants walk the perimeter of Manhattan, which is about 32 miles. I have never walked that far in a day before, so I wanted to challenge myself. Although I’m glad I did the Great Saunter, I’m not sure if I’ll ever do it again. While walking the perimeter of Manhattan, I took a few photos of the city. And for this piece, I decided to use a few photos of parks and streets as my reference photos.
Here’s a video of the project:
I began the drawing by making a rough sketch of the composition. I bounced around a bit, blocking out colors before layering in yellows and oranges for warm highlights, and blues and purples for the shadows.
Overall, I’d say this was a successful failure. I don’t like how the street is off-centered, and the overall layering is just okay in my eyes. However, I’m proud of myself for working with a medium I rarely use, and I’d definitely like to return to it sometime in the future.
If you’d like to make your own colored pencil drawing, here are the supplies I used:
