As I mentioned in my last post, I procrastinated for a long time before I started this drawing. It was the next colored pencil drawing on my "symbolic floral drawing" plan, to be drawn on cadmium yellow Canson Mi-Teintes paper, just like my previous "Nourishment" drawing - but after having a missed miscarriage in September, I wasn't really in the mood to do much art at all, let alone one titled "Enthusiasm."
I finally got around to this drawing in January, finishing it over the course of a few days. The flowers are pink bouvardia, and the title comes from one of the symbolic meanings of that plant. I thought the pink flowers and green leaves would look rather "enthusiastic" set against dark yellow-orange paper, and was excited to see how those colors would work together.
Because the yellow paper is such a unique color, I did some small "test swatches" in the upper left corner (outside of where the drawing will be cropped to when it is eventually matted to 8"x10" size) to see which colored pencils would work best on the yellow paper.
Then I started drawing some of the little bouvardia flowers, using several shades of pink, red, and dark purple. For the larger leaves, I used several shades of green.
Because just one plant didn't fill the paper as much as I would like, I added another set of flowers on the right side, and some more large leaves on the left.
To add some dimension and variation in color to the yellow paper, I added a lighter "canary yellow" and other pale colored pencils (light peach and light green) to the corners and bottom of the drawing.
Finally, I went back through the entire drawing again, adding more dimension, depth, and detail. I darkened the shadows, brightened up the highlights, and blended the colors together. For the leaves especially I did a lot of blending to give the leaves their signature waxy/glossy look.
Below is the final drawing:
I'm hoping to complete several more of these "symbolic floral drawings" in 2019, with my next set of two planned for green colored paper.
I finally got around to this drawing in January, finishing it over the course of a few days. The flowers are pink bouvardia, and the title comes from one of the symbolic meanings of that plant. I thought the pink flowers and green leaves would look rather "enthusiastic" set against dark yellow-orange paper, and was excited to see how those colors would work together.
Because the yellow paper is such a unique color, I did some small "test swatches" in the upper left corner (outside of where the drawing will be cropped to when it is eventually matted to 8"x10" size) to see which colored pencils would work best on the yellow paper.
Then I started drawing some of the little bouvardia flowers, using several shades of pink, red, and dark purple. For the larger leaves, I used several shades of green.
Because just one plant didn't fill the paper as much as I would like, I added another set of flowers on the right side, and some more large leaves on the left.
To add some dimension and variation in color to the yellow paper, I added a lighter "canary yellow" and other pale colored pencils (light peach and light green) to the corners and bottom of the drawing.
Finally, I went back through the entire drawing again, adding more dimension, depth, and detail. I darkened the shadows, brightened up the highlights, and blended the colors together. For the leaves especially I did a lot of blending to give the leaves their signature waxy/glossy look.
Below is the final drawing:
I'm hoping to complete several more of these "symbolic floral drawings" in 2019, with my next set of two planned for green colored paper.
I'm glad you're enthusiastic about art again!
ReplyDelete