Coloured Pencil Peony

 I have been trying to take a photograph of a peony for reference for a long time. Still the reference image for this drawing is at least 4 years old. I had intended to try out watercolour pencils. There were unexpected challenges. Even if I let the first layer dry, it would not behave like paint and blend well with another colour. So I went back to using the Berol Fantasy coloured pencils. It turned out OK.

Red Rose of Late Summer or Early Autumn

 The first creative work of art since becoming a person of leisure is a pencil crayon render of this rose from our garden. I used a set of Berol Fantasy pencils. It's not the best quality, but it worked out just the same. It's my third rose. Since the last time, I really wanted to know what still worked. Just pencil illustrations is far too difficult, so I went straight to colour. The main thing now, I have to figure out how to keep the pencils from breaking when I sharpen them.

Colouring and My Drawings

Finally, I have started to use colour medium to render a drawing. The only references I had were photos taken from our garden. At first I used pencil crayons or coloured pencils. These I had an abundant supply of. There were false starts of course, to get used to the practice. I had viewed enough tutorials on Youtube to see what artists had to say about techniques and layering in particular. For the roses, I stopped short of overworking the drawing. The green was used but in the photos, they were ill-defined. In the drawing itself, it almost anchored an otherwise floating flower.

For the second rose, I used a slightly limited palate, but it ended up muddier looking. Clearly I needed to work learn more about colours.

My next challenge was watercolour pencils. I had played around with this before I understood how to release the pigment in this fuller set of pencils. Even then, I still had difficulty matching the colours to the reference photo.

Who's Sorry Now: A Comic Drawing

Drawing in Pen!

I took one correspondence course in commercial art, but most people  know I have only ever sketched in pencil. This started as such. Having read daily comic strips for months now, I became inspired to adapt it for my own style. It took a good many hours in front of the TV, to search for the right scene for re-imagining, and many more hours browsing the internet for what to include in it.

After the initial pencil layout, I was less than impressed by the placement. I let it sit for a month, before deciding on using pen ink to finish it. I had a black gel pen and a set of fine-tip art pens. Setting the drawing on a transparent clipboard, I had a makeshift light table. A couple of design changes later, I continued the hand drawing with coloured pencils.