2016 Art Year In Review

I got a lot accomplished this year with regards to my artwork!

• My watercolor "Silk Caution" (part of my 2010 thesis painting series) was featured in the Scarab Club exhibition "Blooms Beasts Bugs" in Detroit, MI in May.

• In June, I was invited to be a part of the Paint Creek Center for the Arts Spring Gallery Stroll. I displayed several watercolors, acrylic paintings, and colored pencil drawings in a "pop-up" one-night-only personal gallery in Smith Jewelers in downtown Rochester, MI - and even sold two drawings.

• My artwork was available for sale in the PCCA Art Market all year - including August, when I was given my own "featured artist" table.

• I scanned in many of my original paintings and drawings and created art print blank notecard sets, which have been selling moderately well at PCCA and through my Etsy store.

• I collected a lot of photographs to use for future art compositions - including photos of the colorful autumn leaves, a ton of pics from the Michigan Orchid Show in April, and many images of flowers and plants growing in my own backyard, the yards of my relatives, and public spaces like downtown Rochester and my local library.

• I gained new followers on Instagram and Twitter - and did my best to post an image of recent artwork on Instagram at least a few times a week to reach new people on social media.

• And I completed a LOT of cool art projects. Here are some of my favorites:

You can find many of these for sale at my Etsy shop: etsy.com/shop/ArtworkbyAndreaArbit

I hope you continue to follow me on this blog as well as my Twitter and Instagram accounts as I keep creating into 2017! Happy New Year, everyone!

"30 Days" - The Finished Drawing

This 22"x30" colored pencil drawing was created over the course of a few months, using Prismacolor pencils and black paper. Each rose in the 6x5 grid represents one day in a continuous 30-day cycle. I put a lot of thought into the shapes, styles, and colors of the roses for each day, as well as the backgrounds or other details. I wanted each rose to sort of tell its own story - but also work together as a whole.

After several hours of work, here is the final piece, in all its #30roses glory:

If you want to learn about the symbolism and things I was thinking about as I chose the characteristics of each of the 30 roses, you can check out this September blog post I wrote when I started the drawing.

And if you would like to see any of the roses in detail again (including step-by-step process photos), here they are in pairs:

Roses 1 & 2

Blog post for rose #1 is here.

Blog post for rose #2 is here.

Roses 3 & 4

Blog post for rose #3 is here.

Blog post for rose #4 is here.

Roses 5 & 6

Blog post for rose #5 is here.

Blog post for rose #6 is here.

Roses 7 & 8

Blog post for rose #7 is here.

Blog post for rose #8 is here.

Roses 9 & 10

Blog post for rose #9 is here.

Blog post for rose #10 is here.

Roses 11 & 12

Blog post for rose #11 is here.

Blog post for rose #12 is here.

Roses 13 & 14

Blog post for rose #13 is here.

Blog post for rose #14 is here.

Roses 15 & 16

Blog post for rose #15 is here.

Blog post for rose #16 is here.

Roses 17 & 18

Blog post for rose #17 is here.

Blog post for rose #18 is here.

Roses 19 & 20

Blog post for rose #19 is here.

Blog post for rose #20 is here.

Roses 21 & 22

Blog post for rose #21 is here.

Blog post for rose #22 is here.

Roses 23 & 24

Blog post for rose #23 is here.

Blog post for rose #24 is here.

Roses 25 & 26

Blog post for rose #25 is here.

Blog post for rose #26 is here.

Roses 27 & 28

Blog post for rose #27 is here.

Blog post for rose #28 is here.

Roses 29 & 30

Blog post for rose #29 is here.

Blog post for rose #30 is here.

"30 Days" - Rose #30

I have been working on this "30 Days" colored pencil drawing for a lot longer than 30 days! (It's actually been about four months.) Each rose doesn't take that long - maybe an hour - to draw. But pesky life kept getting in the way of me devoting too much time to it at any given time, so I had to sneak in an hour here and an hour there...

I also definitely got a little sick of drawing roses sometimes, and took a break for a week or so before going back to it. I have been working on smaller colored pencil drawings before this large one, and wasn't used to things "taking so long" to come together.

But finally I made it! This is rose #30, the last one, in the bottom right-hand corner of the 22"x30" drawing.

I started by lightly drawing in the rose with a yellow-brown pencil. I used this same pencil to mark where the rose's thorns would be in the background, and then used a blue and green pencil to lightly shade in the vines and leaves.

I added some magenta and red into the center of the petals, since this rose is going to be redder/pinker again - a callback to the roses in the very first row.

I added a light cream to the very edges of the rose, and darkened some of the shadows with a dark red.

Then I blended the reds and cream together with a light peach color - and then changed my mind about how "neutral" it was starting to look, and added some more red back in instead. I also added in browns, to tone down the red a little and find that balance between neutral and saturated red.

I added a few details to the edges of the petals as well, using the cream colored pencil.

At this point, the entire drawing looks like this. It's almost finished - just a few final touches left to go on the green backgrounds behind this rose and the previous one (rose #29).

I added in more leaves, some brown shadows/stems, and "grass" (the short pencil strokes). I also blended the thorn-covered vine into the background a bit more by toning the green down with some browns and yellows.

And that's it! The drawing is finally complete. Tomorrow I will post some final pictures of the drawing in its entirety.

"30 Days" - Rose #29

Here is the penultimate rose - rose #29.

Since there were only two roses left, I drew both of them in outline form.

Then I started filling in rose #29. I used a yellowish-tan for most of the petals, and a light colored pencil to mark where the dewdrops were going to be. I also started to put in a bit of the leaves in the background - earlier than I usually did when I worked on the other roses. It doesn't matter as much for this one, but for rose #30 the background is a more important part of the story of that rose (it will have some visible thorns), and since I planned to draw out where those vines/thorns would go for the next rose, I also started adding in the leaves for this rose.

As with all the other roses, I built up layers of color. For this rose, I used a lot of peaches/browns/creams, keeping it rather neutral. Then I added just a little bit of red or red/brown (or, in just a few spots, dark blue) into the darkest parts of the petals.

Here is the whole drawing so far - from the top row with its darker red roses, to the middle three with various shades of pinks, neutrals, and purples, and now, finally, the last row!

Only one more rose to go!