"28 Years" - my recent 22"x30" colored pencil drawing on black paper - is finally finished! It took me about two months to complete (though it took three months worth of blog posts to show the step-by-step process)! Each pair of plants in the 4x7 grid represents one year in the 28 years of my life. I put a lot of thought into the types of flowers I would use to represent each year, and how they would work together as a set of two (two plants for each year), and as a part of the larger drawing, comprising 56 total plants.
Here was the finished "28 Years" drawing once all of the 56 flowers were in place:
At this point, I decided to color in the background for a couple reasons - 1) to "connect" some of the sections to each other and make the composition work a little better as a whole, and 2) to help cover up some of the eraser smudges left over from my graphite outlines of the flowers and the measuring and marking off of the 4x7 grid. I didn't want to put too much into the background though, since the rest of the drawing is so detailed and so busy. So I limited myself to three colors - all dark colors, so they wouldn't show up too much against the black paper, and the effect would be subtle. I didn't draw anything in the background with those colors - just shaded in some areas of the black so that there was more variation in tone.
Here is the completed drawing:
Below are some detail shots, showing 3 or 4 of the "mini drawings" at a time. If you would like to see more about a particular section, click on the link to see in-process step by step photos and descriptions of how I drew that pair of flowers, and what the flowers represent for that year of my life.
Blog posts:
Year #1 - Plumeria / Queen Anne's Lace
Year #2 - Holly / Daisy
Year #3 - Aster / White Lilac
Blog posts:
Year #4 - Aloe / Anemone
Year #5 - Ivy / Gerbera Daisy
Year #6 - Edelweiss / Freesia
Year #7 - Morning Glory / Sweet Pea
Blog posts:
Year #8 - Orchid / Cypress
Year #9 - Crocus / Yellow Hyacinth
Year #10 - Sunflower / Oregano
Blog posts:
Year #11 - Horseshoe Geranium / Laurel
Year #12 - Azalea / Coriander
Year #13 - Yellow Carnation / Thyme
Year #14 - Chamomile / Chrysanthemum
Blog posts:
Year #15 - Cherry Blossom / Fern
Year #16 - Marigold / Hollyhock
Year #17 - Tansy / Purple Hyacinth
Blog posts:
Year #18 - Zinnia / Dandelion
Year #19 - Hydrangea / Protea
Year #20 - Red Tulip / White Jasmine
Year #21 - Acanthus / Amarayllis
Blog posts:
Year #22 - Amaranthus / Purple Iris
Year #23 - Peony / Myrtle
Year #24 - Pansy / Daffodil
Blog posts:
Year #25 - Purple Carnation / Four o'clock Flower
Year #26 - Lavender / Lettuce
Year #27 - Goldenrod / Sage
Year #28 - Bells of Ireland / Gladiolus
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It was a lot of fun to work on this drawing, since every "year" had different shapes and colors to work with. I also learned a lot about the names of different plants - like amaranthus (a.k.a. love lies bleeding), a flower I often stopped to admire next to our neighbor's mailbox on walks with Ginny, but whose name I never knew until I started the research for this project; or acanthus, which I actually had a photograph of and used in "Truths and Mistruths," one of the acrylic paintings of my Cloud Atlas Sextet series last year. In blog posts about the creation of the painting, I referred to the plant as foxglove or snapdragon - not knowing that it was actually acanthus!
If you would like to see more photos, or be alerted when I have new projects I am working on, or new blog posts available to read, make sure to follow me on social media:
Twitter: @afrownfe / Instagram: @afrownfe
- See pics of my finished companion drawing, "30 Days," here.
- Read about the symbolism behind the flowers I chose to represent the first 28 years of my life in these two posts (Years 1-14 here; Years 15-28 here).
Here was the finished "28 Years" drawing once all of the 56 flowers were in place:
At this point, I decided to color in the background for a couple reasons - 1) to "connect" some of the sections to each other and make the composition work a little better as a whole, and 2) to help cover up some of the eraser smudges left over from my graphite outlines of the flowers and the measuring and marking off of the 4x7 grid. I didn't want to put too much into the background though, since the rest of the drawing is so detailed and so busy. So I limited myself to three colors - all dark colors, so they wouldn't show up too much against the black paper, and the effect would be subtle. I didn't draw anything in the background with those colors - just shaded in some areas of the black so that there was more variation in tone.
Here is the completed drawing:
Below are some detail shots, showing 3 or 4 of the "mini drawings" at a time. If you would like to see more about a particular section, click on the link to see in-process step by step photos and descriptions of how I drew that pair of flowers, and what the flowers represent for that year of my life.
 |
| Top row, left side: Years #1-3 |
Blog posts:
Year #1 - Plumeria / Queen Anne's Lace
Year #2 - Holly / Daisy
Year #3 - Aster / White Lilac
 |
| Top row, right side: Years #4-7 |
Blog posts:
Year #4 - Aloe / Anemone
Year #5 - Ivy / Gerbera Daisy
Year #6 - Edelweiss / Freesia
Year #7 - Morning Glory / Sweet Pea
 |
| Second row from the top, left side: Years #8-10 |
Blog posts:
Year #8 - Orchid / Cypress
Year #9 - Crocus / Yellow Hyacinth
Year #10 - Sunflower / Oregano
 |
| Second row from the top, right side: Years #11-14 |
Blog posts:
Year #11 - Horseshoe Geranium / Laurel
Year #12 - Azalea / Coriander
Year #13 - Yellow Carnation / Thyme
Year #14 - Chamomile / Chrysanthemum
 |
| Third row from the top, left side: Years 15-17 |
Blog posts:
Year #15 - Cherry Blossom / Fern
Year #16 - Marigold / Hollyhock
Year #17 - Tansy / Purple Hyacinth
 |
| Third row from the top, right side: Years 18-21 |
Blog posts:
Year #18 - Zinnia / Dandelion
Year #19 - Hydrangea / Protea
Year #20 - Red Tulip / White Jasmine
Year #21 - Acanthus / Amarayllis
 |
| Bottom row, left side: Years 22-24 |
Blog posts:
Year #22 - Amaranthus / Purple Iris
Year #23 - Peony / Myrtle
Year #24 - Pansy / Daffodil
 |
| Bottom row, right side: Years 25-28 |
Blog posts:
Year #25 - Purple Carnation / Four o'clock Flower
Year #26 - Lavender / Lettuce
Year #27 - Goldenrod / Sage
Year #28 - Bells of Ireland / Gladiolus
-
It was a lot of fun to work on this drawing, since every "year" had different shapes and colors to work with. I also learned a lot about the names of different plants - like amaranthus (a.k.a. love lies bleeding), a flower I often stopped to admire next to our neighbor's mailbox on walks with Ginny, but whose name I never knew until I started the research for this project; or acanthus, which I actually had a photograph of and used in "Truths and Mistruths," one of the acrylic paintings of my Cloud Atlas Sextet series last year. In blog posts about the creation of the painting, I referred to the plant as foxglove or snapdragon - not knowing that it was actually acanthus!
If you would like to see more photos, or be alerted when I have new projects I am working on, or new blog posts available to read, make sure to follow me on social media:
Twitter: @afrownfe / Instagram: @afrownfe
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