Scratched Pear No. 1, Drawing, 2020

Coloured pencils have never been my thing. Neither has representationalism.  But after seeing the AMAZING coloured pencil artist, CJ Hendry, create brilliant, hyper-realistic drawings, I had to give it a go.  When I set out to do this drawing, I had no idea what the challenges would be.  I expected it to take a long while, so I intentionally kept the drawing small and relatively simple.  In the end, this tiny piece (only 10” x 8”) took me roughly 16 hours to complete.

Along the way, I not only discovered that creating a realistic drawing with coloured pencils takes a long time, as it turns out, the selection of appropriate materials also takes a long time. That is, the choice of paper, the type of pencils, the degree of pressure one applies, the means of blending colours, and the combination of these all take special consideration.  Certain pencils work better on certain paper.  Certain blending modes work better with certain pencils.  Certain blending modes can actually destroy certain papers.  And so on.  So, getting the right combination of materials to complete the type of drawing one would like to do, takes know-how … the kind of know-how that comes from trial and error.