Colorful “Bradley”

"Bradley" 9" x 12" colored pencils on cold press watercolor paper.

"Bradley" 9" x 12" colored pencils on cold press watercolor paper.

“Bradley” is completed! What do you think? I’m not sure he’s my most successful piece, but he has been a great learning experience for me. Here's a link to the previous entries about this piece.

My goal for this piece was to start with a watercolor pencil base and add Polychromos colored pencils on the top. I started with an under painting as I would in a watercolor, using a complementary monochromatic color. I chose blue-violet. In watercolor, this would have worked to my satisfaction. With colored pencils, the yellows and ochres didn’t cover as well as I'd hoped and the piece ended up being a bit dark. On the other hand, the under painting did make the dog look quite solid, and that's a plus.

The cold press watercolor paper I used here was a new twist on a colored pencil surface for me. It felt unusual but ended up working well.

“Bradley” gives the impression of being a wheat-colored dog, more or less, despite being a little extra-colorful. Is he too colorful for a dog? I think like the result.

Next time I might try another approach to the under painting and work a bit harder at preserving my lights. That having been said, I give “Bradley” a conditional thumbs up.