Georgina Kreutzer’s Colored-Pencil Moon, Shoes and Car Drawings

Kreutzer works on the Moon drawing upright against the wall, which gives a sense of its scale: it is roughly as wide as her upper body. Working upright like this lets an artist step back and judge tone across the whole surface.

Here the Moon lies on her worktable mid-way through, with the pencils beside it. The craters and maria are recognisable, but the colours are pushed into violets and rose pinks, an artistic choice rather than an attempt at true lunar colour.

A close view shows how the bright ray crater and the darker mottled plains are built from small marks and soft watercolour blooms. The palettes of watercolour pans on the table show the second medium she combined with colored pencil for this piece.

Kreutzer has drawn a whole series of men's Oxford-style shoes. This brogued pair is rendered with reflections in purple, copper and blue, so that the polished leather almost reads like a nebula.

A second pair, in blues and turquoise, uses long highlights along the toe and laces to show shine. Kreutzer told My Modern Met that shoes are possibly the most ubiquitous design item in history and that she loves sketching them.

Not all of her subjects are luxury objects: here fighter jets of the kind flown by modern air forces are drawn in pale pinks, golds and blues on toned paper, with a white pencil used for highlights.

A sketchbook page shows her process. One seashell is still a white outline, while the finished shells beside it show how layered colour turns a flat sketch into a three-dimensional object.

A full grid of sixteen shells works almost like a study sheet, repeating a simple subject with variations in spiral, rib and colour. Exercises like this are a classic way to train an eye for texture and light.

An unfinished portrait shows only a glossy bob haircut with the face left blank. It is a good illustration of how colored-pencil artists often build one area to full finish while the rest of the drawing is still empty paper.

In this portrait study the face is shaded in violet and coral tones, with the hand still in outline. The cool shadows and warm highlights echo the palette of her Moon drawing.

A leopard's head, drawn in vivid orange and blue, shows her animal work. The fur is suggested with fine directional strokes, while the eye is given the sharpest detail to draw the viewer in.

Classic cars are a recurring theme. This red convertible, styled like a late-1950s Ferrari sports car, is drawn on white paper with soft blue reflections underneath it.

This silver coupe is a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL of the 1950s, known for its gull-wing doors. The drawing is still in progress, with a marker in hand, and the chrome is built from cool blues and greys rather than flat grey.

A black-and-white striped lighthouse stands against a stormy sky. Pencils lie beside the small framed scene, which is drawn on brown toned paper so the white highlights stand out.

A lighthouse on a rocky arch at night, with the Moon in the sky, shows her landscape work. The vignette fades out into the paper at the edges, a technique that keeps the focus on the scene.

The handwritten note on this page identifies the subject as Portland Head Light at Cape Elizabeth, Maine, one of the best-known lighthouses in the United States. The rocks and surf are worked in detail while the edges are left as loose sketch lines.

A blue 1940s-style sedan, its bodywork reflecting the sky, is drawn at a dramatic low angle. The white-wall tyre and chrome grille show how she handles hard, reflective surfaces.

A blue Porsche 911, seen from the rear, is one of the most polished pieces here. Its reflection on the floor is suggested with only a few soft strokes of colour.

A final shoe drawing places a finished brogue beside one that is barely sketched. Side-by-side pairs like this make the time involved in layering colored pencil easy to appreciate.

(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)