"Playfulness" Colored Pencil Drawing

You can purchase this finished drawing here in my Etsy shop.

For this 8x10" drawing - part of my symbolic floral colored pencil series - I used blue Canson Mi-Teintes paper and Prismacolor brand pencils.

The title "Playfulness" comes from the symbolism given to pink hyacinth flowers, which I further developed by drawing the pink flowers and green leaves against this saturated blue paper, making the final piece burst with beautiful colors.

This first photograph shows the gathering of all the supplies I will need - my colored pencils, a sheet of blue paper, my pencil sharpener (resting in the little ceramic dish I use to collect my pencil shavings), and a source photograph of pink hyacinth flowers I found on Google images.

I started with a very light sketch, blocking off the different colors - pink flowers, green stems and leaves - to get a feel for the whole composition.

Then I started adding in details. Each hyacinth stalk is made up of several smaller flowers, so for this particular drawing there were a LOT of details. Each individual six-petaled flower had to be drawn with multiple colors - medium and dark pinks, white and light pinks for the highlights, and dark purple-black for the shadows.

I also used several different pencils to build up the leaves, stems, and little hyacinth buds - this time using multiple shades of yellow and green. I used the same dark purple for the shadows, and the same white for the highlights.

For the hyacinth stalks in the front, I used lighter colors and a lot more white. It took several layers to build up the colors so that the blue paper would only minimally show through and I would get the level of saturation I wanted.

For the hyacinth stalks in the back, I used red and peach colored pencils (in addition to the pinks I was already using for the other hyacinth). I used the white pencil minimally, and colored more parts of the hyacinth in with the dark purple pencil, so that more of the back hyacinth would be in shadow.

Here is the completed drawing:

For the next two colored pencil drawings I have planned for this series, I will be using gray colored paper. Check for those blog posts in probably a month or so. :)

You can purchase this finished drawing here in my Etsy shop.

"Flight" Colored Pencil Drawing

You can purchase this finished drawing here in my Etsy shop.

After finishing "Ambition" and "Fertility" (two 8x10" colored pencil drawings of flowers on red paper, which I wrote about on this blog here and here), I continued with my symbolic floral colored pencil series - this time creating two drawings on blue paper. I called the first of these blue drawings "Flight" - after the symbolism of the birds of paradise flower.

In this first photo, you can see my collection of Prismacolor colored pencils (separated into "warm colors" and "cool colors"), the source photograph I found on Google images of a birds of paradise flower, and my piece of blue Canson Mi-Tientes paper.

As usual, I started with a light sketch of the flower, getting the colors and shapes blocked off so I would be able to see the composition as a whole.

Once that initial layer was complete, I started adding more layers of color, as well as details and dimensionality.

Here is the final drawing:

Because this drawing is only of one single birds of paradise flower (rather than a collection of many pomegranate flowers or hollyhock, which I used for the compositions in "Fertility" and "Ambition" respectively), and because of the unique nature of this particular species, this drawing takes on a more abstract feel than my other drawings so far in this series. I could have included a whole bunch of birds of paradise, but I felt that a single flower better captured the symbolism of "flight" - by featuring only one flower, you can really see the detail of the colors, lines, and shapes, which gives it that majestic feeling of a bird about to take flight.

The other drawing I recently completed on blue paper is titled "Playfulness" - and it's the subject of the next blog post I'll write. :)

You can purchase this finished drawing here in my Etsy shop.

NYC Photos - Central Park Zoo

As I mentioned in my last post, my husband and I went to Central Park on two separate days of our vacation to New York City. On the last day - Friday, April 6 - we walked through part of the northern edge of Central Park and the rainy, not-yet-blooming Conservatory Gardens, before seeking shelter from the weather at a nearby Starbucks and the Jewish Museum. Then, after lunch (and once the sun started to peak out behind the clouds just a little), we ventured out to the Central Park Zoo to try to soak up just a little more Vitamin D.

Here are some of my favorite photos of the animals (and a few flowers/plants!) we saw at the Central Park Zoo:

NYC Photos - Central Park

During our eight days in New York City in late March/early April, my husband I walked through Central Park twice - once on Sunday, April 1st (Easter Sunday), when we walked through much of the Southern half of the park, and again on Friday, April 6, when we walked through part of the Northern edge to see the Conservatory Gardens. It was unfortunately raining on Friday, so we didn't spend as much time there as I would have liked - but there was also not much to see, given that the colder-than-average weather meant there was very little yet in bloom.

Later on Friday, once the rain stopped, we also went to the Central Park Zoo - but I'll save the photos of the animals for another blog post. :)

This blog post features some of the landscape views throughout Central Park, as well as close-ups of some of the spring flowers I saw in bloom.