Thank you Huanghehe and Vena and Elaine.
We shall see how this goes and whether I can remain patient enough to finish.
There is a huge amount of detail and that is the challenge.
Based on past experience I will probably stall out at some point … I will get tired of looking at this image … and my postings will become more sporadic.
But I always finish what I start.
I don’t give up.
Which might be a good trait for working with color pencil.

LadySue, I tend to jump in with color rather then lay down a foundation or underpainting of gray for value scale. I hope i understand correctly that is the basis of your question.

The gray that you see is French Gray and I am using it for the third building … I am using various percentage of French Gray from light to dark to represent the building face falling into shadow as it recedes from light sources.
I lay down the French Gray and then I lay down some Orange or Permanent Red for the signage bloom.

And that is one of the other challenges with this drawing.
I have multiple light sources beyond the ambient lighting.
I have to imagine how the signage or source of lighting would affect the reflection off the building.
There are several signs and several light sources.
I am not just replicating the reference photo … I am improvising based on what I think the lighting might do.
So it is a bit of a puzzle.
But also forces me to think more.
Which is a good thing.

Thanks for looking
Richard

Hi Virginia. Nice to hear of your connection with Toronto. It has changed so much in my lifetime, and I don’t know when you left this fine part of the world, but you may find it quite jarring to return … particularly the Yonge and Dundas development. But this section of King Street retains the character of your grandfather’s time … with some neon additions.

Hi Delo … thanks for the encouragement and your advice re Strathmore paper. I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned solvents … I think that is the key to blending and saturation in this case.

I thought I would share some articles written in The Artists Magazine April 2017 issue. I bought this magazine over a year ago and just read it this past week. And I am glad I did.

I bought the magazine because there was an article on Jesse Lane … who is an amazing color pencil artist. Tanja Grant is also featured in this same article and she is equally talented.

There is another article written by Armin Mersmann … I have always admired his skill and technique … and patience.

But the real reason I mention this magazine is an article written by Lynn Ferris called Light up the Night. Lynn speaks of how she gravitated to creating watercolor images based on night scenes.

She mentions that she has become an astute observer of not only the dark, but of light as well. She notes that night scenes almost always incorporate multiple sources of light. She says think of yourself as a designing with light and dark to direct the viewers eye around the composition.

In other words, play with it and don’t try and force a literal depiction of the scene.

Which is my aim with this project. Play with color and value and have some fun.

Thanks for looking
Richard