5" x 7" Prismacolor Premier and Prismacolor Lightfast colored pencils on white Rising Stonehenge 100% rag paper.

Robert's Marbles was inspired by a photo reference and exercise in Masterful Color by Arlene Steinberg. Rather than just do the exercise based on the cover illustration verbatim, I rearranged the elements, made some of them larger and thus increased the depth of field, and fooled around with the colors changing the reference dramatically. I had to figure out how the highlights and reflections would look done with these changes by my imagination. The results took my breath away. This painting is absolutely not for sale.

But it demonstrates specifically what I mean by colored pencil painting. It is completely saturated with at least a dozen layers on every area of it, even the background, smooth realism with crisp edges and a painterly stroke that blends easily, then burnished thoroughly.

In person it shimmers and bounces off the wall, it looks as if the marbles are going to roll out of the painting.