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

When I say this drawing is a celebration of differences in sexuality, I'm including differences in libido, sexual behaviors, frequency, desire, willful abstinence, asexuality, sexual orientation, and relationships. For more discussion on sexuality (and definitions of related terminology), please visit this blog post.

For a description of the specific symbolism of the 24 flowers used in this drawing, check out this blog post.

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Sometimes I wonder if I should come up with more creative blog post titles, instead of just saying "In Progress #6." But then I rationalize that I already spend too much time planning and writing these posts as it is. I could probably just post once, with photos of the finished piece, and everyone would be happy - but if there's at least one person out there who likes seeing these step-by-step pics, I guess it's worth it to show them off. :)

Today's post is all about the step-by-step pics of the yellow section, as well as half of the blue section.

I started with the pale yellow chrysanthemum. Yellow pencils don't always show up super well on black paper, so I put down a layer of white pencil first, and then layered the yellow on top, to make sure the yellow was nice and bright. I added some orange into the shadows, and used the black pencil to define some of the petal edges a bit better. Altogether, I used white, cream, yellow, orange, "artichoke" (which is that ugly sort of dark yellow-green pencil in the middle), two shades of green, and black.

The next yellow flowers I tackled were the daffodils. I used white, cream, yellow, orange, green, brown, and black pencils.

For the yellow freesia, I used white, cream, yellow, and yellow-orange. For the stems and leaves, "apple green."

The bright yellow sunflower needed cream, yellow, yellow-orange, orange, yellow-green, light green, and black pencils.

Once the yellow section was complete, I moved on to the blue flowers. I did this simply because I'm used to working left to right (being right handed), and I didn't want to smudge the completed flowers while I worked on the next ones.

These little pale blue forget-me-nots used two shades of light purple, two shades of light blue, a medium blue, two shades of green, and yellow and orange for the centers of the flowers.

The delphinium stalk was created with four shades of blue and a green colored pencil.

Only six more flowers to complete (plus the large, fishbowl-shaped vase at the bottom of the drawing)! My next post will cover those "in progress" photos.

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

When I say this drawing is a celebration of differences in sexuality, I'm including differences in libido, sexual behaviors, frequency, desire, willful abstinence, asexuality, sexual orientation, and relationships. For more discussion on sexuality (and definitions of related terminology), please visit this blog post.

For a description of the specific symbolism of the 24 flowers used in this drawing, check out this blog post.

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Now that my newsprint plans are all done, it's time to move on to the final drawing on black Canson MiTeintes paper. Before I jump right into the details of each flower, however, I start with doing a general sketch, laying out the placement of the plants to make sure I have the proportions more or less the way I want them.

Today's post is going to be about sketching out the first dozen flowers this way, using graphite pencil and lightly pressed colored pencil. The harder you press down on a colored pencil, especially on black paper, the brighter and lighter the color becomes; for a rough sketch, then, I use only light pressure. This way, the colored pencil can be somewhat (though not completely) erased if it needs to be.

I started with the color red. I sketched in pencil the outlines of the plants, then started filling those outlines in with color.

Red poppies:

Red tulips:

Red amaryllis:

And light red protea:

I next moved on to the orange section.

Orange roses:

Orange gerbera daisies:

Orange zinnia (the pencil looks yellow in this picture for some reason, but it really was more of a yellow-orange color):

And pale orange lilies:

Finally, I worked on the yellow section.

A large, pale yellow chrysanthemum:

Yellow daffodils:

Yellow freesia:

And a big yellow sunflower:

Here's the drawing so far, with half of the flowers sketched in:

My next blog post will look at the initial sketches of the next three sections: green, blue, and purple.

"Race Bouquet (Stronger Together)" - In Progress 4

To read about the meaning behind this drawing or the specific symbolism of each flower, visit this blog post.

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My new 19x25" colored pencil drawing, "Race Bouquet (Stronger Together)," is coming along nicely! Now that my preliminary sketch/planning is finished, and a lightly drawn in first layer is down on the black paper, it's time to start adding depth and detail by working on each flower individually, looking at my reference pictures for guidance, and blending layers of colors together.

I started with the astilbe on top. As you can see, I used only three colors for this one - a light pink, a slightly darker pink, and white. There wasn't much shading or dimensionality to add here - just a series of lines to represent the thin little branches - so it was a quick plant to complete.

I moved onto the cattails next, which was similarly easy. I used two different shades of yellow-green for the stalks, and three shades for the brown cattails.

The gladiolus required a bit more work, since there were several flowers on each stalk. I used two shades of peach, two shades of orange, and dark red and black for the dark centers of the flowers. Then I used three shades of green in the stalk-like stems and leaves.

I worked on the protea next, using two shades of pink, "pumpkin orange" for some of the shadows, white and cream for the highlights and the lines at the center of the protea, and two shades of green for the leaves around the protea's base.

For the freesia plant, I used two shades of green for the stems, pale yellow and cream for the highlights, three shades of pink, and a dark brownish-red or the shadows, and black to define some of the edges.

The hanging amaranthus on the left side was created with two shades of peach, two shades of orange, a yellow-orange pencil, pale yellow, and black. I used two shades of green and some orange to add color to the leaf.

Those are the first six flowers. I plan to gradually make my way down the rest of this bouquet, flower by flower, in much the same fashion, until they're all complete!