“Rose Alike” – Belinda Lindhardt
Artwork size: 44   X 68 cms
Framed: 78  X 91cms

I think we are done

This artwork will be on display and for sale this coming weekend at the Central Coast Grammar School Spring Fair Art Exhibition.

Details to come

Rose Alike Work in Progress – Coloured Pencil by Belinda Lindhardt

It’s past the middle and towards the end in the creative process when I often take the time to pause. It’s tempting to sign it off as finished tick another thing off the list.. but I “know” whether its done yet or not. “Knowing” is not dialogue its a gut feeling I have learnt to trust my gut and know when I am truly done, only then I can be satisfied and move on.

At the moment I am not done I am pausing to absorb what needs to be done further before I take the next step.
Technically I have sprayed with a few coats of workable fixative, this allows me to seal whats there already (the green was smearing everywhere as I was working) as well as allows me to add more layers particularly on areas where there is quite alot of pencil already. It kinds seems to put a bit of grit onto whats there if that makes sense. I find this spraying process also helps later on when I give some final coats of protective & UV varnish to my work for added protection Some artists I know have had problems with wax of the pencils showing through, but I have never had that problem I think the workable fixative at this points prevents this somewhat.

The is an art to pausing,  I am learning to love it

I just received a lovely supply of Zest-It and battery erasers they have for sale but some have been ordered to my lovely workshop attendees. If you are interested let me know

Speaking of my workshop I had great workshop last week (I cant believe it was over a week ago already). Here are a couple of pics.

This workshop was slightly different that the previous workshop I held earlier in June and I was glad to see many of the particpants had come back for a second dose . In this workshop I was covering a few more blending techniques, experimenting with different supporsts (drafting film) and various pencils and papers and solvents.

It was really interesting for those who were trialing with the cheaper pencils and papers they were unable to achieve the same level of colour and coverage than those who use the thicker paper and artist quality pencils. They were starting to get a bit frustrated. So again I will say it’s so important to use quality materials when doing these types of artworks even if your just practicing – otherwise your just practicing being frustrated rather than your technique.

I have some exciting news on the coloured pencil front but I am holding off on that for the moment. Stay tuned!

Progress on my latest work: As you can see,  I have added lots more layers of colour particularly on the yellow pear and some of the red.

For Artists: One of the things when I am at this stage of working is to be always checking my values.  I constantly check a black and white reference of the pears just to make sure I have the values of the shadows in the right position and that they are dark enough.
It’s really important with a round object like this to also use  pencil strokes in direction of the contours of the object you are creating.

This is where it’s really important to have knowledge of how the object is 3D / real life.   I tend to imagine how that curve is rather than try to copy what is on the photo. If I was to copy exactly what i see on the photo then  I would get a very flat looking piece.
This is why drawing from life regularly is so important even though you use  a photo as a reference in your final artwork, its important to understand how something REALLY is in order to capture that.

This is my first coloured pencil piece where I think I am going to leave a lot of the paper white. In most of my pieces i will  generally cover all areas of the paper but  I don’t think it needs it in this instance, we will see how it progresses when I get further to the end.

That’s it for now, on for more layers.

June 2010 Coloured Pencil Workshop

In conjunction with the CCAS (Central Coast Art Society), my workshops for the society are coming up on June 2nd & 16th 2010.

These workshops are some of the very few colouredpencil workshops using dry pencils happening in Australia and I am excited to providing these again, I hope some local coloured pencil artists and artists wanting to find out more information will come along and have a great morning of pencils.
Last year I was so inspired to have such a lovely group of people from all levels and teach them all about pencils and its been fantastic to see some of these artists exhibiting coloured pencil artworks following this workshop in both CCAS and various Sydney exhibitions.

This year I want to again try to cater to both artists who have had no coloured pencil experience as well as those who came last year so depending on how many we have of both on the day see how we go.  I will try to specify that if you are a beginner please try to come to the first workshop as I will cover beginner techniques specifically on that day.

I will also try to have some supplies for sale on the day such as stonehenge paper and some polychromos and prismacolour pencils. One reason being that you as can’t get prismacolors up here on the coast. If anyone is at all interested in purchasing anything else let me know ASAP so i can cater for it. I was considering perhaps purchasing some Zest-It as there were many people interested in this last year– anyone?

Time: 9:30am to 12:30pm

Location: Gosford Art Gallery – the Studios
32 Web St, EastGosford NSW

Cost: $10- Including Morning Tea

Date 2nd June 2010 – Introduction to Coloured Pencils

This workshop will be covering an introduction to using coloured pencils. We will cover different coloured pencil materials, artists, techniques, supports, skills and process used in creating coloured pencil artworks. In this workshop you will come away with an understanding more about working with coloured pencils as medium as well as being exposed to the basics in creating coloured pencil artworks.

Date 16th June 2010 – Continuing on with Coloured Pencil Artworks

This workshop is where we will go beyond the basics working with complimentary colours, planning an artwork more advanced blending techniques.
I will demonstrate my processes with various supports for different effects and speeding up work time. From this workshop participates will gain exposure to different ways of working with pencils used in completing a coloured pencil artwork.

Reference materials and photos will be supplied on both days, however if you have something specific you wish to work on please bring it along.

Materials: As a guide it is best to use quality artists pencils and good quality paper for pencil work or you will be frustrated with the results.
So please bring along:  Stonehenge paper - can be bought in large sheets at Eckersleys (cut down into more manageable sizes)  or bring along your best drawing paper.
Pencils: Either Prismacolour or polychromos pencils in at least 3 values of the 1 colour of your choice eg. light blue, medium blue & dark blue & white pencil.
Cotton buds for blending and makeup pads if desired.

I will have materials available for artists to “try” on the day and I will have a small supply of papers and pencils to purchase if you wish but not required.

You don’t have to be a member to enjoy the society so there is no excuse hope to see you there!

As part of the discussions happening over on the Australian Coloured Pencil network of late, when creating my Santa hat illustration I took some photos and video which has just been uploaded over on the CP resources page.

If your interested in the technique or just want to see how i created my illustration go over and check it out

http://www.colouredpencils.com.au/cpresources/

If you like the video let me know, its a bit sketchy i know but its my first would like to do some more in the future

I have a bunch of ideas for Christmas illustrations that can be used for business and clients and personal use, so many ideas just not enough time.

I did manage to get one in today, a santa hat created with coloured pencils on paper..

BUT due to my magnificence (modest aren’t I) the idea is i have created it in such a way and edited the file so that you can use it for many other applications such as logos, photos, products multiple backgrounds, greeting cards etc.

What do you think?

Today is the end of a very busy week, what is great about this week is that i have managed to tick off a few things on my list that have been weighing me down both for work and personally.

To say that i have had  a bit of weight taken off my shoulders is a bit of an understatement, i have to say i have been struggling of late, i know part of it has been taking on too much, trying to achieve too much, but at the same time, they are all things that need doing. I am learning to prioritize  better and allow more contingency time in the future that will give me a bit more space to breathe, i need it.

This week i have completed 4 websites! Admittedly,  two have been in development for the past few months but they have all been made live this week which is fantastic .

One is the new Central Coast Art Society website, of which i am very proud to have completed. I was elected as a committee member earlier in the year to help out the existing webmaster with the website.

The previous CCAS had outrun its service and was becoming very hard to manage as the site was growing. So i am very happy to have provided the CCAS with a new website that will hopefully serve the society better for a while to come.
I am really proud to help bring art to the wider community and to be helping out local artists through this community society. Its really good perspective to be involved with a community project / service I thoroughly recommend it, if its not something you have previously been involved with.

Check out the site at: http://www.artcentralcoast.asn.au and if your a central coast artist – are you a member ? You get a FREE profile on the site!

Second website of the week is  Australian Coloured Pencil network .

This website has been running for a while on the ning network. To be honest I have always struggled with the ning system but for lack of time to research and find a better system, i figured anything was better than nothing and went with that in my inital launch.

The Australian Coloured Pencil community has defiantly grown since this website started, i am really happy to be doing something to help grow this community and raise the profile of coloured pencil art in Australia and help support other CP artists.

To cut a long story short, this week I was finally able  to implement a new system / website for our members, this website will mean so much more for the members, and will be great for me as there is so much more potential in terms of management, content, etc. as well as the potential for the site to recoup some of costs associated with its running.

So anyway go and check the website out, I still have some content and listings to add, I will get to it when i can, the site is primarily aimed for the Australian Artist but we welcome anyone from around the world so if your a CP artist, come along and say hi -

Australian Coloured Pencil network and we are also on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AusCP

That’s it for me for this week, i have also been retouching some paintings this week, getting ready for summer exhibitions in January – stay tuned, now I think i will have a beer and OMG hopefully RELAX!

Well, i am back. Today was my first coloured pencil workshop which I was asked to do earlier in the year by the  Central Coast Art Society. I had such  a fantastic time really enjoyed it!

There were 12 participants in all, which is a fantastic turnout, and i feels so honored that some people had made a special trip from quite a distance to come. Thankyou all so much!

The workshop was an introduction workshop, I covered alot of information about supports, materials and well known coloured pencil artists etc. I questioned myself that i was planning to speak for such a period of time in a “workshop” but I felt it quite important to cover these things as coloured pencils are  a medium which is not so known in Australia and for those which are new it i thought it would be valuable to share the info to see what is possible with a humble pencil.

I also thought it important to cover information about materials, mentors for coloured pencil artists are overseas, so alot of the information artists will receive here in Australia is conflicting and confusing particularly in relation to supplies etc.  It is also limited further up here on the Central Coast as opposed as to range that you can get in Sydney so again i wanted to cover alot of that today to help artist alleviate some of the confusion and run around that you can get when trying to get into this form of art.

As well as all the info, i had some exercises for the artists to do on values, pressure, building layers, colours just to get the ball rolling for people to get the feel for themselves on the technique. If i was to have jumped straight in and tried to get people to work from a reference today i felt that i might have lost a few people or  when trying to do it themselves at home people may have become a bit frustrated if i hadnt taught them the “right” way to go about.  So hence the structure of todays workshop, i also covered a bit towards the end about mixing colours, blending lifting colour. All in all some good groundwork.

The next workshop is in a fortnight from today, so i am hoping in that one i may  expand a little bit more into  tips for creating an artwork and some of the more advanced techniques etc. Again tho, time will be a factor trying to do all of that in 3 hours is a tough call, but i hope to be able to give a good indication of what you can and cant do.

For all of you pencil fans, here is a photo that may interest you all, one of the ladies brought in these vintage pencils to use. Look at that packet! Fantastic!

At the moment i am busy preparing for my coloured pencil workshop coming up in October.

A lady called me about it today and after her phone call i realised that I had written a wrong date on one of the leaflets I had put out when holding a demo at Erina fair !! ekkk. I have no way of contacting her so i appologize if you have one of these leaflets, the Workshops for the Central Coast Art Society are held on the first and the third wednesday of each month.

Workshops will be on the 7th and the 21st of October.

At the studios (next to Gosford Regional Art Gallery- Web St Gosford)

I am still finalizing how i am going to structure the workshop but here is a brief explanation of my plan, i am really excited about it, hope to see any locals there!

This workshop will be covering an Introduction to creating coloured pencil artworks.
We will cover different coloured pencil materials, techniques, supports, skills and process used in creating coloured pencil artworks. Run in conjunction with the Central Coast Art Society by Belinda Lindhardt.

Materials List:
Please bring along whatever materials you have, the below are preferable:

Coloured pencils Brands either:
FaberCastell – Polychromos, Sanford  – Prismacolor, Derwents – Coloursoft.

Colours please bring whatever you have, as a guide you will need: White,  3 primary colours and at least 3 shades of 1 chosen colour ie. Light green, medium green and dark green.

Paper:
“Stonehenge” or Fabriano paper is best (bought as whole sheets so please cut into workable sizes) or your best cartridge paper.

Sharpener:
Battery operated sharpener preferable or handheld.

Working Board:
Foamcore Board or Smooth board or cardboard to place under your paper to workon.

You don’t have to be a member of the art society to come along, and you don’t have to book, just come along on the day.

I feel terrible about my date mix up i hope it doesn’t muck up anybody’s plans. Otherwise all is good looking forward to it.