A Daisy Today

"Daisy"

ACEO - 2.5 x 3.5"

colored pencil drawing on wood veneer

This has been a very busy and productive week for me; however, none of the busy-ness included making art. Oh, there were a few jabs at the sketch book, some planning and some creative thinking, but no real time for drawing or painting.

I was only able to get this little ACEO done. I drew it with colored pencils directly onto a small sheet of wood veneer. This is another technique where you can frame the piece without glass. Just a spray of acrylic varnish and its all set.

But I wonder, does the lack of time to make art cause other artists to become as cranky as I have been this week?

April Virtual Sketch Date

Rhododendron

watercolor and colored pencil

on Arches 140 hot pressed paper

I thoroughly enjoyed working on this month's Virtual Sketch Date drawing of a rhododendron from a reference photo provided by Jeanette Jobson. After getting the composition I wanted from cropping, I realized that what appealed to me about the image was that it reminded me of a stained glass window. While wanting to retain that, my goal was also to keep the flower as the focal point and not let the background overwhelm it.

This month, I also decided to work in mixed media with watercolor and colored pencil. Here's my progression:

Step 1 - watercolor wash

Step 2 - First layer of colored pencil. Establishing the dark areas.

Step 3: Second layer of cp. I work all over a drawing at once and build my layers of color. Here I'm still working on layering in the darks and establishing more realistic shapes.

In the final step (above), I've continues to build the color and then began muting some of the background with complimentary color in order to establish foreground and background.