Star of Bethlehem botanical drawing, Colored pencil. 5x7 in.

What a difference adjusting the white balance on the camera makes!  I retook this picture, since I realized how blue the previous one looked.  Instead of just replacing the blueish pic with this one, I thought I'd just add the new one so I could compare the two.

Colored pencils on white bristol board... 5x7 inches

I've been drawing quite a bit lately, and spending time using colored pencils to do some botanical drawings.  I love flowers, and it seems, for me, it's easier to draw them than to paint them.

I had bought a bouquet of flowers just before Christmas from the grocery store.  It had white mums, red carnations, a red rose, and this flower that I had never seen before... and it hadn't bloomed yet.  Over the last few days more and more of the little star shaped flowers have been opening and I wondered what the name of it was.  I finally looked it up, and it is called the Star of Bethlehem!  Just right for a Christmas bouquet!

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!

Terra cotta colored Canford paper, and pastel pencil...

I had ordered this terra cotta shade of paper quite a while ago, thinking it would be a little bit of a duller color, but when I received it, the color seemed so vibrant I set it aside not sure what to use it for.  I took it out today and cut it into some smaller pieces to play around with.  After using some charcoal and white chalk on it, I decided it was a very nice middle value to work on, and the color didn't seem to matter very much.  Then I decided to draw something more detailed on it, and copied this face from a Botticelli painting online... I used some pastel pencils for some color and I really loved how nicely the pencils worked on the paper.  I didn't want to stop drawing on it!  It is Canford paper, by Daler Rowney.  I have another color, champagne, in the heavier card version.  Either one is nice, light watercolor works nicely on it, pen and ink also.graphite, charcoal, pastel pencil, color pencil... In my opinion, it has a very nice surface to work on.  

I haven't been doing much artwork lately, I'm going to have cataract surgery in about a month, so in the meantime, I've been spending my art making time pretty much just sketching, doodling, I figure I'll wait til I can see clearer to do any nicer drawings and paintings.  

Drawing some little bits of nature....

I put together an assortment of iris petals, a dandelion, lily of the valley, and a little yellow flower, and drew them carefully with a pencil on Bristol paper.  I liked how it looked just with the pencil, but I couldn't help but color it in.  I used some watercolor, and color pencil.. But mostly watercolor... I'm not sure, again, whether I like it better before I colored it, or after.  

I could have worked on it a bit more, but I decided to stop here.

Thank you for taking the time to check out my artwork! 

Violets

This is a little pencil drawing I did today of a sprig of violets I pulled up out of my yard.  After I was  finished  drawing, I decided to color it in with some watercolor.  I took a picture before and 

after... I don't know which one I like better.

Daffodil sketches

I can't help but want to draw these beautiful  sunny daffodils.... Sketches from life, in pencil, ( and one colored with watercolor)

Value studies... Lemon and tiny daffodil..

I draw almost every day, so I'm surprised to see I haven't posted any drawings in about a month!  Well, here is a little study I started yesterday, and finished today...  A charcoal and pastel drawing on gray Canson pastel paper. It's good to practice creating values, it's so easy to forget just how many different steps there are between black and white. I'm trying to keep this in mind, and also trying to keep my values separate, and clearly different from each other. 

Coffee, Cookies and Chocolate!

Another sketch today, of coffee, windmill cookies, a sugar cookie and a Neuhaus chocolate truffle. 
On Strathmore toned paper, with Derwent Drawing pencils in "Terracotta", "Ivory black", "Venetian red", and "Chocolate" of course!  plus  white chalk pencil. 

A page of pears!

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a nice holiday season!
I enjoyed the holidays, but now I am glad to have some free time to myself, to relax and do some drawing.  I love my Strathmore toned drawing paper!  I used a sepia Conte pencil, and General's white charcoal pencil, which looked very nice by itself, but I couldn't help to color some in further with a few Conte pastel pencils.
These are small forelle pears.  I only had two of them, I just repositioned and redrew them over a few times.