Thoughts on Colored Pencil Paintings

Thoughts on Colored Pencil Paintings

"Moving Day" by Joan G. Funk 

based on photographs from a NASA staff photographer.  

I was recently looking at the Colored Pencil Society's"Explore9!"online show.  There are some really incredible painting by some very talented artists in the show.
 
Explore This 9! award winners

One of the things I enjoyed about some of the paintings in the exhibit was the humor  in the work including the best in show award winner by Eileen Sorg.  In thinking about humor  in paintings I realized most of the paintings I remember from previous Colored Pencil Society's shows while being technically awesome also had the element of humor or surprise.

More of Eileen Sorg's work can be seen at Two Dog Studio.  While a large part of her work contains humor, another portion is highly realistic.  The common thread in her paintings is animals.  If you are an animal lover or looking for some humor I would suggest looking at the gallery on her website.

Mana Hewitt, Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Art Department of the University of South Carolina, was the juror for the show.  She definitely had a difficult job.  I can narrow my favorites down to ten or so.  But picking the best in show or which one should get one of the other awards would be very difficult!

Although I have done some colored pencil work and enjoyed it, its not something I do very often.  It took me a minute or two to realize why that is- Colored pencil paintings just take an incredibly long time to do, particularly if you are going for a realistic look.  For an example if you are doing a cat you will have to put in every single pencil stroke to get the "fur" and in some cases you are building up multiple layers.  Love the look!

"Moving Day" was the second colored pencil painting I did.  I had no idea I would be working on it for months.  Its the only painting I have done that is associated with my other profession.  In this painting a large composite cryotank is being lowered into a test stand.  The crane operator can not see inside the test stand so he was working blind.   The three men in the painting were talking continuously to the crane operator so he would know what was going on.   It was like watching a high flying trapeze act - well rehearsed with flawless hand-offs.