Project 2: Exercise 1 - Detail and tone

I took a satsuma and separated the pieces into segments. 

To make the most of the striking orange flesh, I placed the pieces onto a white sheet of kitchen towel. 

As suggested, I chose coloured pencils for this exercise and used a putty rubber sparsely. 

I found the coloured pencils frustratingly difficult to work with. 

My first difficulty here was building an intensity of colour. The orange of a satsuma is so vibrant, this was very difficult to recreate using this medium. Here, I believe the shade of orange is correct, I achieved this colour by blending yellow and orange and in the very darkest areas, I also blended in a little red. Where this drawing is incorrect is it's life and vibrancy. 

I also struggled to build up enough colour using the pencils, I had to press really hard on the paper and as I was using a smooth paper, I did feel nervous about working my way through the sheet. 

I have also struggled here to create volume of the fruit, This drawing is not 3D, it is too flat and therefore taking away from the beauty of the satsuma in real life.

On the whole I feel this drawing has been unsuccessful. However, I do feel that following the advice offered and squinting to see strong dark areas was very helpful indeed and I can see that I have successfully added these areas into the fruit. The putty rubber was very good at lifting the colour to add lighter areas. 

Cross hatching has been applied throughout the drawing and was a very useful and effective way of adding tone. 

I feel that I will return to this exercise later on and reflect on my mistakes in the meantime.