Friday, February 3, 2012

Strawberry Shadow Play


This sunny still life will be featured in an article which will appear in a summer issue of the Daniel Smith Artist's Materials catalog, and also on the Ampersand Company website. The nice people at Ampersand asked me to do this after seeing my prizewinning piece in the Artist's Magazine, and I was very excited to accept. (Ampersand makes the Pastelbord that I have used for almost all of my colored pencil paintings.) Included in the article are some photos showing the drawing at different stages, along with information about my process, and some thoughts about my work.

To coincide with the catalog's season, I pretended it was summer here in chilly Maine, and set up the strawberries, old blue glass saucer, and a favorite tiny yellow pitcher out on the sun porch. That was when those great shadows introduced themselves to the composition. I really like how they formed a kind of sunburst shape on the little pitcher!

I will post an alert when the article has ben published, but for now, here is Strawberry Shadow Play.

(12x9", colored pencil on Pastelbord)

6 comments:

Teresa Mallen said...

Congratulations Liz,yeah for Ampersand! The shadows are fabulous and I love how you found strawberries that still had their gorgeous stems on. You mentioned the pitcher was tiny and goodness it must be. It all makes for a very lovely still-life.

Elizabeth A Patterson said...

Hi Teresa, and thank you! Yes the tiny pitcher was a part of my grandmother's collection. It's only around two inches tall, and it is a favorite of mine. (You can find it in a few of my earlier pieces as well!) This is one of the rare times that I drew the objects larger than actual size... they are about double their true size.

Ester Roi said...

Beautiful, Liz! I'm not surprised it's having so much success already.

Elizabeth A Patterson said...

Thank you, Ester! And thank you for sharing your varnishing technique on your blog... I credited you for my adaptation of that technique in the article. :~)

Kendra said...

Congratulations Liz. Nice piece and it does remind me of spring! I alwas like your style on the pastelbord and it's so nice when colored pencil artists are recognized by the retailers.

Elizabeth A Patterson said...

Thanks, Kendra! It was interesting (and a little unnerving) to periodically stop, photograph, and analyze what I was doing for the article... a definite learning experience!