SEND IN THE CONES
Caroline, one of my pals on the ArtKula art forum, has gained quite a reputation for her famous watercolour sketches of wheelie bins and traffic cones. She loves painting ordinary things, and it has become quite a joke between us. She reported recently that she’d been out painting on a course and had said to the teacher that it was a shame there was no traffic cone in the scene, and the teacher said she’d go and look for one for her! I told her she ought to have her own traffic cone in the boot of the car, to bring out whenever she was painting en plein air, so she’d never be caught short. Her hubby didn’t think it would go down too well with the council if she nicked one of their traffic cones, though! Definitely time she had a few in her possession, though, hence my latest project.
Planning a drawing
As I was coming to the end of the DrawAwesome online drawing course, I had it in mind to do a special drawing for Caroline to celebrate her love for traffic cones. I had a few ideas mulling around in my head and finally came up with a plan.
I decided it would be fun to draw a series of different traffic cones. Through Caroline’s art work, I realised that there were different styles, including a rather intriguing spiral design one which I knew I would have to feature. I decided to draw them in black and white, and reserve the traditional orange for the background, just to mix things up a bit.
As I thought about it, it occurred to me that I could have some fun with this, and not just draw a series of different styles. I had already planned to add some Zentangle patterns to them, and other textures with the pen work, but I thought I could add some fun characters to the line-up of the cones.
The final drawing
Here’s the final result.
I must say I had tremendous fun with this and enjoyed every moment of it! The first part was a little tedious, drawing out a grid in which to insert each cone, but it was fun all the way, once this was done.
I worked on a sheet of hot-pressed watercolour paper. The paper had to be able to stand a watercolour background, but I also wanted it smooth enough for the drawing. I drew the cones first, adding the patterns to them, but not doing any shading at this stage. Then I painted the orange background with watercolour. It dried pretty uneven, which I expected. Having learnt from Phil, our online art course teacher, a wonderful technique of adding coloured pencil to a watercolour underpainting, I proceeded to work with two shades of orange coloured pencil from my Amazon Basics set, starting with the lighter of the two. I really like the texture that you get with this technique.
I added a bit of shading for a 3-D effect, using a magenta pencil, and then it was time to add a lot of stippling for the shading on the cones. I really like this texture on an ink drawing.
When it was done, I added further shading with a warm grey coloured pencil, and the work was complete.
Some detail shots
I interspersed the character cones with ordinary ones. Most of them had pattern on them where the orange bands would be in real life, and the bases were of different shapes. I was surprised to be able to find lots of images of traffic cones online to give me inspiration.
Here are some detail shots, as the cones on the picture above are a bit too small to see properly.
Here is the top couple of rows of cones.
The second two rows:
and finally, the last row of the five.
The banner title across the bottom of the drawing.
A bit of shading does wonders to make it spring into 3-D!
Some really close-up shots of individual cones
Now to get up close and personal with the character cones.
I thought I’d have some fun with one of the spiral cones. To my mind it was just asking to be unravelled! Any cone misbehaving in this way would have to be a very silly-cone. It does have a somewhat rubbery appearance, don’t you think?
Couldn’t resist this one!
Thoroughly heat-resistant, ready for re-entry.
I’m particularly fond of this one. Maternal love in cone-world.
Another one I simply couldn’t resist. I am fascinated by bristlecone pines, which are thought to be the oldest living things on earth.
Finally, the ice cream cone beside a cone that has unfortunately got a bit squashed.
I hope you have enjoyed my bit of fantasy indulgence into the world of the humble traffic cone! I also hope Caroline enjoys my efforts on her behalf! Traffic cones rule, OK!
