Flower Attribute Notecards - Blue & Green Set

As mentioned, I have several new notecard variety packs available in my Etsy shop, including new designs from my "Flower Attribute" series. Today's blog post is featuring the "Blue & Green" set, which includes scans from the 10 colored pencil drawings I've completed on blue or green paper.

The ten designs included in this notecard set are:

• Flight (Birds of Paradise) on blue paper
• Playfulness (Hyacinth) on blue paper
• Immortality (Acanthus) on blue paper
• Whimsy (Carnation) on blue paper
• Creativity (Dahlia) on blue paper
• Faith (Iris) on blue paper
• Hope (Button Poms) on green paper
• Transformation (King Protea) on green paper
• Wealth (Astroemeria) on green paper
• Luck (Bells of Ireland) on green paper

Love the style of these notecards, but wish you could swap out a few for other floral designs I have? I also have a U-Pick listing where you can mix-and-match among all my floral colored pencil design and color options and build the perfect stationery set for your preferences!

Flower Attributes Series - Update

More than two years ago, I posted that I was starting a series of 8"x10" colored pencil drawings of flowers. Each drawing would be of a different plant or flower species and be horizontal in orientation; their titles would be a single word: one of the attributes given to that flower - a word that someone had, once upon a time, decided that flower would symbolize.

I'd made 3 drawings in 2017 before deciding to expand it into a larger series. These first 3 drawings were:

• "Endurance" (Succulents)

• "Anticipation" (Anemone)

• "Shame" (Peony)

At this point I stopped, did a bit of research, and made a list of which flowers I might want to include in this series, what colored paper I would use for that drawing (out of the stock I had - red, green, blue, yellow, gray, tan, and black), and what title I would give it. Since many flowers have multiple attributes that they symbolize, and many flowers mean similar things, I wanted to make sure I was choosing different titles for each drawing. The list grew to be a total of 69 planned drawings (including the 3 I'd already done).

That was at the beginning of 2018. In the two and a half years since then, I've completed 30 more drawings from that list, 24 which I've already posted here, each with their own blog posts:

• "Ambition" (Hollyhock)

• "Fertility" (Pomegranate)

• "Flight" (Birds of Paradise)

• "Playfulness" (Pink Hyacinth)

• "Prophecy" (Heliotrope)

• "Loyalty" (Daisy)

• "Nourishment" (Sunflower)

• "Enthusiasm" (Bouvardia)

• "Hope" (Button Pom)

• "Transformation" (Protea)

• "Constancy" (Bluebell)

• "Strength" (Ginger)

• "Resentment" (Petunia)

• "Justice" (Black Eyed Susan)

• "Whimsy" (Purple Carnation)

• "Immortality" (Acanthus)

• "Fame" (Trumpet Flower)

• "Vitality" (Zinnia)

• "Balance" (Enchanter's Nightshade)

• "Modesty" (Violet)

• "Fragility" (Azalea)

• "Union" (Myrtle)

• "Wealth" (Alstroemeria)

• "Luck" (Bells of Ireland)

I've also completed another 6 drawings so far this year, which I haven't had a chance to post on this blog yet (look for those posts coming soon)!

I still have a long way to go before I finish all 69, but now that I've completed almost half of them (33 out of 69), I thought it would be a good time to check in and see how they look as a group altogether. I'm loving this series, and excited to see what they all look like together at the end!

"Whimsy" Colored Pencil Drawing

Side note: My phone camera started to die a little when I was working on this drawing, so some of the photos aren't the best. It started by having some problems focusing, and within a couple days was completely malfunctioning. Trying to use the camera would eventually freeze my camera app, and trying to look at the pictures I'd taken in my gallery app would freeze the gallery app. This eventually caused a complete phone failure, and I had to reboot my phone... I started taking photos with my husband's phone camera instead for a few weeks, until I had time to get a new cell phone. I only use my phone for calls/texts, social media, and taking pictures, so when one of those 3 categories no longer works... It's time for a replacement. (To be fair, the phone was 2.5 years old, so I wasn't entirely surprised.)

But anyway - here are some photos of the last drawing I completed before my phone camera complete crapped out on me: "Whimsy," a colored pencil drawing on 8"x10" blue paper. I used Prismacolor colored pencils and Canson Mi-Teintes colored paper, and looked at a source photo of purple carnations as inspiration while I drew. (Purple carnations symbolize "whimsy"!)

I started with a line outline of where I wanted the flowers to be, and then lightly sketched in some details of the petals and leaves:

Then I went through the flowers one by one and added more depth and detail. To get the texture of the carnations, I used a lot of short pencil strokes so that the edges of the petals would look less like a smooth rose and more like that ripple/wrinkled effect carnations often have.

For the flowers, I used a light peach for the highlights, black and dark purple for the shadows, and magenta and two other shades of purple for the mid-tones.

Once the flowers were complete, I added dimension to the leaves and stems with two shades of green, plus black for the darkest areas.

Here is the finished drawing:

Look for this drawing for sale in my Etsy store soon!