Well, for this project, anyway. I finished the pear and grapes last night, after avoiding doing it all day. I don't really enjoy working at night because all I have is artificial light, and it's so hard to work with yellows with that sort of lighting. I've got some reveal bulbs in my desk lamp, but I'm thinking I should try some day light bulbs and see how that works out.

Anyway, I'm not as happy with this piece as I was with the tomato from the first lesson in Masterful Color. I think the problem was that, with the tomato, Arlene went step by tiny step with you all along the way, but with the pear, she took out a lot of details. Things like when and how to feather colors, what pressure to use, and so on. I mean, I thought that eventually she'd shorten the list of instructions in the lessons, but not after the first image. Let's hope things get better next time.

Also, another small note. I've been working with some old Dick Blick paper I've had for about ten years now. It's starting to yellow and isn't very heavy at all, but it's got more tooth than anything else I have on hand. Plus, I figure this way I won't ruin any of my good paper with all these lessons. The rest of my paper is meant more for markers and watercolors, which means it's pretty smooth, since that's what I usually use more than anything to lay down colors. My colored pencils are usually an after thought, put in to add detail and depth. I can probably only lay down two or three layers of colored pencils on that paper. So if I want to continue this method of colored pencil work that Arlene talks about in her book, I'll have to get more pencil oriented paper.