Thursday, September 9, 2010

Ballet Slippers in Graphitint pencils

I've always loved ballet. There is an elegance and a style in ballet that really doesn't exist in any other type of dance. The dancer's lines stay so long and lovely that my art sense starts twitching each time I watch a performance. So after years of collecting images and sketching ideas, I eventually decided to start with the slippers, prompted in part by a beautiful colored pencil piece by Marianne Anderson.

I wanted dance shoes with a story. Used shoes of any sort have a zillion times more character than the shiny new ones. I found this pair at a local dance studio. The owner/teacher had spent time dancing professionally and kept several pair of her old shoes hanging on one of the barre's in the studio. They fascinated me every time I was there. So I finally asked if I could borrow a pair for a week and used the time photographing the shoes in a variety of settings, situations and positions. (It seemed appropriate for ballet shoes :) ) This was the shot I started with:

It wasn't everything I wanted though so I added a rose from this shot, a bud from another, etc.



In the end, this was the final sketch.

I LOVE working on colored grounds so chose a stony blue Strathmore pastel paper this time. I was a little concerned that the final art might be too "cool" but after reflection decided it matched the style I was aiming for.







I should also mention I was testing out a new set of watersoluable graphite pencils - Derwent Graphitint Pencils. I began filling in some light background on the shoes and building some of the highlights with a white pencil.





One problem I realized fairly quickly is that I hit a saturation point where the surface became too slick to add more far sooner than I liked. On a different paper, it probably wouldn't have happened as quickly but I didn't want to give up on the piece at this point. To compensate somewhat, I hit the darkest shadows with the darkest blue the set had to offer. But I wasn't concerned about "finishing" these areas until I had more color in place.





The next step was to start adding the greens. This set offered three shades and I varied them to keep the light consistent with the slippers. The greens actually blended very nicely and I left the leaf veins alone until the final layer was ready to be put down after the roses were colored.







The colors in the roses provided more of a challenge. A very limited sets of reds/pinks in this set meant I only had one or two choices. After a couple false starts down in a corner of the paper, I elected to use only one color for the roses but build the layers to provide the shaping and shadow.

Once these areas were in, I went back with the white pencil and smoothed the layers of the rose petals, adding a few highlights, as well as pumping the contrast as much as I could on the slippers. When the white wouldn't lay down any more, I switched back to the deep blue and built up the shadows around the slippers to increase the contrast. I did find the background a bit too cool still so took a medium brown to shade a little further out around the slippers. By the "rules," a warm background can seem awkward but because the whole piece was so cool in tone (by my design), I liked the contrast it provided.

I still found there was a bit of a "disconnect" between the flowers and the ballet slippers, but eventually resolved that by putting very thin (and I do mean very thin) hints of the burgundy shade from the rose into the edges of the slippers - around the toes, the lace casings and the satin ribbons over the insteps. It didn't take much accent at all to help give a harmony to the entire piece.


An extra comment: I took this piece to a critique night framed with a black core grey mat and a white frame. It looked fine but, again, made the shoes recede a little into the mass of cool background. After some more experimentation, it is now framed with a standard white mat, and a hammered pewter-colored frame. It's a classic look and I am pleased with it.

The finished piece can be seen in my Etsy store here.


*Note: I mix the lighting when I photograph my artwork to give me a sense of what might be missing in certain conditions. Sometimes, the photos look a little foggy as a result but it is intentional on my part.
You get to see it as I do.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

The words to go with the pictures

Part of the excitement of developing artwork is in the process. There are distinct stages to any work of art, both good and bad, and I will share some of mine here. Not out of any sense of egoism, but because I've learned some of my most powerful lessons watching other artists at work. If my progress or my mistakes are any encouragement to you, I'm happy to share them.

So here we go...