Before I even began my sketch today I decided that I wanted to capture the mood "tranquil" because that was how I was feeling. I found a radio station called Tranquility Radio on Pandora that has soft music with the sounds of nature. It fit perfectly with the sketch I wanted to create. Soft blended colors were my goal in this sketch of an onion and a vine with variegated leaves.
I recommend this music for slow and patient layering of colored pencil. Unlike my more recent energetic sketches, this was a welcome change of pace similar to my second sketchbook posted in this blog.
Sketchbook Exercise: Set aside a block of time to practice gently layering colors with very light pressure. Concentrate on the quality of the blending. The goal of this exercise is to create nice transitions from one value to the next or one color to another. This is done by slowly building up alternating layers of color.