Apparition

My entry for Colored Pencil Magazine's Monthly Challenge (November)

This entry was selected as the winner : coloredpencilmagazine.blogspot…

Monochrome portrait using white, grays, and black on black paper.  I've been wanting to draw a portrait on black paper using white and gray colored pencils for some time now.  When I saw the reference for this month's challenge, I felt it was a perfect opportunity and couldn't wait to get started.

I am very happy with the way this drawing turned out, but it was a total pain getting here. The black paper I ended up with is terrible.  My local art store didn't have a lot of selection for black paper.  This one has so much tooth that I have all these black speckles in my drawing.  I had to go back over every section with a super sharp pencil and carefully fill in the speckles as best I can to make it smoother.  I went through 2 brand new white pencils, 2 brand new light gray pencils, and the majority of my darker grays and black pencils as well.

What Colored Pencil Magazine had to say about my drawing:
STUDENT/BEGINNER Winner
Why It Won: We are so fascinated with how you did this as a “reverse” image, using grey pencils on black paper, for a “black and white” image. I know it was a struggle but the results are breath-taking and I hope you are are as excited with the results as we are! The skin is soft and I have to note the perfection with the pinky (funny how something so small can make such an impact!), while I have to also comment that I think the mole on her forehead needs to be either more defined or eliminated all together. Those eyes and detail in the hair are excellent. I am glad to see you left in the dark circles as I think this give personality and emotion to the overall image. Thank you for your inspiring entry!

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Reference
WIP

Work time, 6 days
Materials:
11x14 Black paper
Prismacolor Premier Softcore colored pencils (Black and White)
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor colored pencils (5 different shades of gray)
kneaded eraser