Geo Exposure 4: Silence is golden.

"Silence is golden." made it just in time before 2014 ended. There were interruptions during the process that it took me to finish it in nearly three months. I had some crazy office work to accomplish for most of that time and then spent many days doing Christmas-related errands.

This was like a puzzle I had to solve.

This drawing was more tedious than any of the earlier pieces I made. I used four photos as my references - a grass field with plumes (I'm not really sure about it but they look like plumes so please correct me if I'm mistaken and I'll update this post.) in Intramuros, a column of stone in a beach resort in Albay, and two versions of their merged double exposure. Then I made uneven angular divisions across the paper. Just when I thought of using multiple references was already a headache, the real challenge (Should I say pain?) came in when selecting which photo should I use for a specific area without obstructing the plume and stone being the main subjects of the composition. Well, I had no choice but to proceed with the idea.

I tried my best not to cross the boundaries.

Eventually, I treated it like a puzzle, piece by piece that I had to connect to get the whole idea come to life.

I actually enjoyed doing those little dark specks using Derwent's Pale Brown and Prisma's 90% warm grey.

If the third piece, Distortion, had the most systematic process by far, this one had the opposite! The left-to-right or clockwise method did not work all the way for me on this one. I began with the clockwise method but past halfway I began picking different areas to work on. The reason was that I started to get bored and annoyed with painting similar areas for quite some time so I thought that working on a different area would motivate and excite me more. Lo and behold, it did its magic. Of course, I went back to the areas that I skipped.

Stone column part 1.

Stone column part 2.

This was the first time that I used the Prismacolor Premier pencils and Gamsol odorless mineral spirit (OMS), something I learned from Alyona Nickelsen's Colored Pencil Painting Bible. I particularly like how easy it was to use in spreading the colors to cover the larger divisions. The Prismacolor Peacock Blue on the stone looked brighter after I applied the OMS. 

Stone column part 3.

I finally got a brighter WIP photo.

Onto the final stage. Skipped some areas on the central part. I was going from the outer to the inner part like a spiral.

I chose the phrase "Silence is golden." as the title because after observing each photo and remembering the moment I captured both albeit different times and places, I am reminded of the importance of silence. The phrase actually means that the thought of saying nothing is better (not always) than speaking. These objects I drew don't talk and will never talk but they send me this message that it's okay, and sometimes even better, to hold my tongue (even my mind and fingers for this digital age) for a while from saying about anything or against anything.

What a huge relief that was to reach the end of it before the new year as I was able to clear my mind off and rest for a few days. Now it's time to prepare for the next one and I'm sorry if this blog's going to sleep again.

Cheers and happy new year!

Silence is golden. Colored pencils on 8.5 x 11 Bristol board.