I’ve been doing some experimenting with colored pencils and new kinds of paper this week. I wanted to do a flower close-up and chose a pink peony as my subject because all those layers of petals are just ridiculous to try to replicate, and I do love a challenge…
This was done on a 5″ x 7″ piece of cardstock with a lustrous finish that was left over from our wedding invitations. I wanted the colors to feel muted, like a vintage print that’s been hand colored, so I did some shading in graphite pencil over the colored pencil. While you can’t really see the full effect in the photo, the subtle sheen of the paper worked really well with the toned-down colors. Overall I like the effect a lot and will have to play around with it some more.