I am completing my practice pieces by using demonstrations from the book, Painting Light with Color Pencil by Cecile Baird.  As I said in my previous post, this book is perfect for beginning color pencil artists.  The exercises are uncomplicated demonstrations that can be hand drawn and the author does a great job in giving you guidance by listing the colors before starting the piece, and gives step by step “recipes” outlining the steps and colors to use.  The canister and apple drawing is done using the Canson XL Bristol Smooth Smooth paper. The Bristol smooth has enough tooth on the paper to grab the color pencils nicely; moreover, the creaminess of the Prismacolor Primier Artist Pencils easily helped in the layering process.  I used alcohol to blend 3 or 4 layers, but found using the Derwent Colorless Blender a better choice in blending and burnishing the colors.