Anne's Rough Collie Feedback
One of our members Anne sent us her fantastic Rough Collie Pastel Pencil picture for some advice and feedback. Anne writes:
Hello Colin,I have to tell you I am so happy to have found your marvellous videos online. I have been following on with four of them now. This latest one of the Rough Coated Collie is one I am very proud of. I really am a beginner in pastels and I can't draw at all but I find following along with your works a treat.I was wondering if you wouldn't mind giving me some feedback on my latest project. I wonder if you think the ears look ok and the bridge of the nose. Anything else you can add would be appreciated. I must add that I don't have very good paper. ...something I shall remedy soon.Thanks so much.Anne
To listen to Colin's advice click the play button or read the transcription below:Hi Anne this Colin Bradley. Steve sent me on your lovely picture of the rough collie and what I'm to do is give you a few pointers which will help you in future projects. The first thing I noticed when I looked at it was your eyes are a little bit too stark.What I mean by that is whenever you get a very hard and strong colour you need to have it subdued slightly by the areas surrounding it. If you look at my picture for instance you'll see that I've got a lot more colour around the eyes and what it does it melts the eyes into the head. Now I know if you look at mine you'll see that they're very stark but they were on the original picture that I did. So there's something you can do all you need to do really to remedy that is to add a little more colour. Certainly the pinks and the greys to give a little bit more support for those strong colours.It's the same thing applies really under the nose where you got the the under part of the nose touching the mouth, the mouth is very strong. I've got it even stronger than you have but again I've melted it in so the colour that I've got on the area between the nose and the mouth is a lot darker than yours is. These are small things but they do make a difference to the overall effect of the animal. Now apart from that I think you've done really well forget about the background your backgrounds fine. Perhaps it could've been a little stronger but that's something that will come in time. I wouldn't worry about that.You were a little bit concerned about the ears. I'm not too concerned about the right ear on your picture that does good but the left there is certainly a room for improvement you see you almost got a line across there again if you refer to my picture you'll see that it melts in. There's no obvious line and this is done by grading the colour. Not a difficult thing to do and it could still do it wouldn't be a problem just add a little bit more strength to that.Now as far as the top of the head is concerned you got the colours the various colours. I think you've done a really good job I know how difficult that is for you to do but this is something I wouldn't worry about at the moment. It will come in time. What I do is I use a blender a lot. You've seen me use them the colour shapers we call them and that can soften these colours if you drag the colour on you'll see you get the same effect that I've got. Again it's a good idea but overall I think you've done a great job and I can understand while you're really proud of it and I would be too.So good luck I look forward to seeing you do some more work and send it on to us in the future. Bye for now.
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