This image is a detail from the Peony drawing I am currently working on. This is about half of the total piece, the other half I will be working furiously on all week long. I have been on a mission to complete this drawing by the end of the month to get it into a show that opens in March in NYC.
I am also anxious to begin the next drawing in the series which is a huge close up of another white peony flower. Last summer I cut the flowers from my garden and photographed them outside as the sun was setting, my favorite time of day. The warm light and intense shadows work well with a pure white flower. The reflected light on the petals create gorgeous colors in the shadow areas. After at least two hundred photos with my digital camera I selected about ten that I wanted to use as possible references to draw from. I was looking for dramatic compositions as well as high contrast between light and dark areas of the flowers. I again used my computer as a sketchbook and cropped and altered the photos to create the reference material I wanted. Colored pencils are the perfect medium to capture the luminosity of the peony petals. The soft colors are slowly layered on top of each other building up beautiful warm velvety petals and the intense blue-violet background contrasts well with the ‘white’ peony.
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