Mixing, Blending, and Burnishing: Colored Pencil Workshop

Photos my helper, Lynn Platow, took around and about the workshop day.

As in MY workshop! My very FIRST workshop.
And, MAN, was I nervous… it it all turned out to be wonderful. :)

The workshop was part of the MasterWorks Show here in NM, you can see from the pictures, it took place right in the show space—surround by gorgeous art to inspire us. I had 12 students, which was the perfect size class for the day. Of course, 3/4 of them were members of my colored pencil group, people whom I knew, and knew me, well. I knew they were all there just to learn how I do what I do, so that  helped ease my nerves I think.

Me and my table FULL of supplies and examples

Here's my class, hard at work!

Here I am demo-ing.

A bit of my process: After the board is prepped and the sketch is made…
1. Underpainting (I only did half to, eventually, show the difference in finished piece). My underpainting is not particularly neat or detailed—I do it just to stain the paper so it's lest likely to show through the pencil work.
2. Beginning to layer in colored pencil, still rough.
3. More details & values built up, plus "burnishing" one tomato complete.

Various students' takes on the underpainting process.

The objective was never to finish the sample project, but to experiment, so I didn't get any photos of the pieces after they started with the pencils (really wishing I had now, there were so many unique takes!)

I learned so much, but mainly that teaching really can be fun! The idea has always kind of terrified me. 

For future classes, I'd like to delve deeper into the "burnishing" technique, I think it needs more of a step-by-step exercise to get people more comfortable with the process. Will have to see what I can come up with to flesh that out—especially since I'll be going through this again with my local Colored Pencil group in June!