Magnolia Drawing in Colored Pencil

Started a new drawing. Hopefully it will be the first in a series of colored pencil drawings and paintings of magnolia blossoms.

I have long been meaning to try drawing these large, dinner plate sized flowers. Years ago I good a series of reference pictures of the magnolia blossoms on a neighbors trees, but never did anything with them.

Now, 3 computers latter I needed to locate these pictures. I thought it would be along search, but to my surprise they were on the first CD I looked at.

I take a lot of pictures, and back them up onto CD's by date. I do write on the CDs what they generally hold. I do know when these trees bloom so thought I would have to look through all of June 2005. But not so.

Printed out several shots of these flowers on regular printer paper. I don't need them in glossy format, the photos are for reference only.

First up is a small 5x7 drawing done on Ampersand Pastelbord, the dark green. I drew the basic flower on with white pencil, then filled in with white inktense pencil. I can use water to float the pigment of inktense to get good coverage. Then when it dried, I can fill in with white pencil.

Creating a Color Wheel

sorting beads

Classes this month are working on creating their own color wheel. One caveat, it must be made from found objects. Ea. no painting them. You have to work with color in real objects.

 

Putting things in their places.

It can be anything. Mostly solid colors, but it does not have to be. Collect objects, then using a printed color wheel, select and arrange the objects.

 

More difficult than they expected!

 

Things they have found out?

 

Color is not consistent nor constant!

 

When have trouble remembering color.

 

Problems to solve?

 

Where does it fit on the color wheel. Is it a pure color, or a compound color (made up of non adjacent colors)? It is a primary with white? Black? Gray?

 

How is it affected by other colors around it?

sses this month are working on creating their own color wheel.

One ca

Roses, Roses and more Roses

Started some new paintings, of roses.



Bunch of Roses

I love white roses and have been using them to teach value in art classes, so I decided I would paint a few paintings of roses.


One is 11 x 14 gallery wrapped and the other is 16 x 20, wrapped canvas, but of standard depth.



The first I started by simply painting a streaked background, then when it was dry, just putting random roses in a sort of bunch.



I started to layout some stems with the thought of putting them in a clear vase, but I don't think I will. I will leave the stems vague, and little to no leaves, and I am not going to paint in a vase at all. The way they are bunched together, it implies a vase, but only by suggestion.





single White rose

The second, smaller canvas will be of one perfect open rose. The background will be mostly muddled greens and yellows, but with a couple of leaves and fallen petals, but lacking in detail, except for the central rose itself. That will be detailed. But nothing else. Right now there is a second rose in the background, but I think I will paint that out, it competes with the first rose and adds nothing to the composition.



Even More Botanicals

Winding up our work on botanical drawings

Working

 

Each of the students are finishing work on their botanical drawings. Some have more to do than others, working in larger sizes. For this project many are doing their first large drawing. Working 16 x 20 rather than the standard sketchbook size.

 

Botanical drawings do require a balance between negative space, in this case, white space and the positive space, ea. the plant. Having enough space to isolate and highlight the subject is important.

 

Justin, Leaves and squash

Another aspect is the accurate depiction of color of the specimen. Analyzing just what makes up that color, what kind of green are you looking at, now much yellow verses blue. Plant colors are not simple, but complex. It does require that you look and observe all aspects of the plant carefully.

 

The same is true of the texture of the plant. It is smooth, fuzzy, rough. Having the actual plant is a big help.