The Making of Pumpkin

"Pumpkin"

First chicken portrait.... and it's a commission!! I'm so excited! 

So first things first... the head. Lots of reds, pinks and browns went into the head. Even though the head is obviously quite bright, I wanted to keep the application of the colour subtle to make sure I didn't overload it on the page. From recent research of other coloured pencil artist's I have found their most successful pieces are the ones that are more subtle and haven't been attacked with the pencil... I admit I can definitely be guilty of this sometimes. 

Next came the feathers... easy at first and very quickly became quite tricky. My own fault I suppose I really wanted to put as much detail into as possible so I started to doing very single feather. I layered up the lighter colours first with the yellow tones and then built up the browns and reds to add the shadows and revealing the highlights. Once I got a few done on the chest you could really see the effect it was giving and I was very happy with the result. I then went over the feathers lightly with a darker brown to add a bit more depth and shadow to the chest. The original photograph showed the chest being very dark, however I wanted to make sure you could still see the beautiful bed/orange tones in each feather. 

And here we go... the final result Pumpkin is complete! measuring 9" x 11" and I am extremely happy with he result. I am now itching to do more chickens!!!! Any suggestions on what to do are more then welcome! 

Would love to know what you think of the final portrait in the comments ;-) 

K x