The Process of a piece: On the rocks

"On the Rocks" is an observation art piece I made to diversify my portfolio. Many art schools require observational pieces, which are works made from life, meaning that you were looking at something in real life or a photo you took and drawing it the exact way you see it. These pieces are meant to display technical skill, showing if (or if not) you have the skill of drawing from life and realism techniques.

For my observational piece, I wanted to do something that would be really eye-catching, as well as work on my photo-realism skills. I took this photo of my dad's drink, since I thought that the light reflecting on the glass and the liquid would make for an interesting composition.

I used colored pencil on black illustration board, because that would give the coolest effect with the reflections and colors. I started with an outline, and I swatched some colors I saw fit to see how they show up on black. 

During the creation of the piece, I like to take a photos to track the progress. So, here's a picture about a quarter-way finished, a little less than an hour in. 

After a quick break for breakfast, I finished the piece after another 3 hours. The whole piece took about 4 hours to complete. I am pretty proud of the finished piece. While it doesn't look photorealistic to me, since I made it and can better see the flaws, I got a lot of comments from people saying they thought it was a photo at first. That's a huge compliment, and I'm super flattered by that, since this is my first attempt at photorealism. Below is the completed piece once again, I hope you enjoyed following the process of the piece with me again !