"Class Bouquet (Stronger Together)" - In Progress 6

This colored pencil drawing uses flower symbolism to represent the entire spectrum of social class from poverty to wealth and everything in between.

To read about capitalism and the growing disparity between the lower and upper classes, visit this blog post.

To read about the symbolism of each flower used in this bouquet, visit this blog post.

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Halfway done with this colored pencil drawing means I also have half more still to go! Today's post will look at the step-by-step process of finishing up the next six flowers in this bouquet drawing.

For these yellow kingcup flowers, I used seven colored pencils: tan, yellow, three shades of green, white, and black.

Over on the right side of the bouquet, I used cream, purple, magenta, pink, red, dark red, and black colored pencils to finish up this tight cluster of peonies.

For the yellow carnations, I used black, orange, white, cream, yellow, and three green colored pencils.

This coronella dahlia has a signature orange color. I used yellow and orange for the petals, dark red and black to add some shadows and define edges, and two dark shades of green for the leaves.

These evergreen clematis flowers were drawn with three shades of green (for the leaves, stems, and stamens), and white, brown and pink (for the petals and shadows).

Finally, the branch of pink orchid flowers was finished up with pink, red, brown, yellow, and white colored pencils.

I have only six more flowers to finish up until this entire drawing is complete!

"Class Bouquet (Stronger Together)" - In Progress 2

This colored pencil drawing uses flower symbolism to represent the entire spectrum of social class from poverty to wealth and everything in between.

To read about capitalism and the growing disparity between the lower and upper classes, visit this blog post.

To read about the symbolism of each flower used in this bouquet, visit this blog post.

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As is typical with these 19x25 colored pencil drawings, I first planned out the composition for this second-to-last drawing on newsprint. Once that plan was in place, it was time to move on and lightly sketch the flowers onto black paper. Today's blog post will look at the first dozen flowers, and the initial sketches I did on black paper as I started to slowly build up the bouquet.

I started with the pink and green flowering cactus in the middle of the drawing:

Then added yellow kingcups below that:

And marigolds:

And yellow carnations off to the right:

Above the cactus went in a clump of dandelions:

These white blossoms are blackthorn flowers:

Over on the left side of the drawing, I added in yellow tansy:

While the orange coronella dahlia went in on the right side:

Next, I sketched in a duet of pale pink peonies:

Filling out the left side, I added in some white myrtle flowers:

Pink French honeysuckle were drawn in above the myrtle:

And finally, in the upper left corner, I sketched in some yellow hibiscus:

This is half of the bouquet sketched in. Check back again in a few days for another blog post on the next twelve flowers. Then, once everything is sketched in, I'll start going over with more color, adding dimension and detail throughout the bouquet.