The Art of Colored Pencil Drawing

I hail from the city of Mumbai and have been practicing my art for almost four years. For me, the journey of creating an artwork is more important than the final results. Safe to say, the one thing I’ve learned is that the more heart you put into your process/journey, the better your results will be. Taking my time and understanding the complicated twists and turns of my subject and reflecting their movement with my pencils on paper is an inexplicably soothing experience for me.

I’ve always had a fondness for bold and bright hues. And, as an artist, I keep experimenting with different color combinations to achieve dimension and vividness. Nature is a continuous source of inspiration and with flowers, I get plenty of room to dabble in any color I want to. Flora and fauna contain a sense of gentle gracefulness that is contrasted by their rich, saturated hues. This striking contrast is what I try to achieve. Bordering on realism, the subjects I draw are also peppered with my imagination that spurs me to make spontaneous additions. ~ @colouredin

Dancing Dahlias: Featuring three distinct varieties of Dahlias, for this piece I let the complementary colors do the talking. For some whimsy, I added a few buds that contrasted the big, popping flowers. Blending one color into another seamlessly, especially for the cactus dahlia was essential and dark indigo was carefully used to add depth.

Storm Rose: Blending color and getting the tonal values right was extremely important for this one. The core of the flowers was most difficult and led me to spend many hours with the magnifying glass. I especially wanted to get the leaves right as they have an underrated quality of adding dimension to every floral piece.

Rising poppies: Using watercolor as the base saved a lot of time on this artwork as I no longer had to worry about covering the tooth of my paper with pencils. Regardless, this still ended up taking many hours as I rendered the background with wax pencils that are forgiving and deposit more pigment on the paper.

Colored Pencil Flower Drawing Ideas

Fiery Aloe Buds: Growing right by my window, these buds fascinated me with their orange, yellow and green hue. For my artwork, I decided to brighten these colors a bit more and use a sunnier orange as compared to the actual rich burnt orange hue of the buds.

Sunbathing Penguins: A soothing scene, in this artwork I was keen on capturing the relaxed atmosphere. Rather than concentrate on every stroke for the fur or the precise angle of the head, this pastel pencil artwork was challenged me to create an ambiance that the viewer will resonate with. Though the actual sky and sea were much lighter, I just couldn’t resist adding a rich combo of green and blue against the black and white fur of the penguins.