I have been wanting to create this image for the last year after seeing a statue of Mary on the TV and thinking that it had a similar shape to bottle of whisky. Originally it was planned for acrylic on canvas but after using colour pencils on the last exercise ‘Mark Making Techniques’ I decided to get it down on paper in coloured pencils while it was still fresh in my mind.

However, due to what I think is probably the standard of pencils I am using I had to press very hard on the paper to get the shadow in some spots removing some of the surface. I think it maybe would have been a better idea to produce this sketch in watercolour pencils.

I began by sketching it with pencil and then rubbing out the lines as I swapped them for a very light tan colour pencil and then started on the lighter tone. My only regret really is that I didn’t make the bottle longer, rather than cutting it shorter like I did, although it is still recognisable as a bells bottle the figure would have looked better with a longer bottle.

My weaknesses with colour pencils at this stage are completing the details such as the writing on the bottle, I made a total mess of the 8 at the bottom of the label but liquid paper came in very handy.