Old-Fashioned Peonies

One of the most beautiful of the old-fashioned garden flowers is the peony (Paeonia officinalis). With its lovely scent and form, it is one of my favorites and I always wish that its blooming season would last a little longer. I was given this particular plant by a dear friend whose home had a collection of flowers and plants planted by previous owners through the years. This was one of them. Really no idea of who or when, but I like to think about the first gardener who planted and saw this lovely pink flower bloom for the first time. 

I thought I would share how this drawing came to be, from plant to sketches to finished colored pencil painting.

First of all, I like to make a few sketches and note the color mixes I will use to get the accurate colors of the plant. You can see here that I have made a couple detailed drawings of certain areas of my specimen.

Along with my sketches I almost always take photographs of the flowers before I start to work because, as you see here, they tend to wilt, move and drop their petals. I draw my working sketch on a piece of acid free tracing paper. It is easy to erase as I work out the composition.

After I transfer my drawing to the "good paper" (here I have used Fabriano Artistico) I use my color notes when I begin to use colored pencil. I am using Faber Castell Polychromos and a few Prismacolor colored pencils.

To keep the white of the paper clean, I make a cut-out of tracing paper to surround my drawing as I work. This protects the paper from a stray crumb from a bright pink colored pencil--something that is very difficult to erase.

To get a smooth, rich color it takes many layers with a light touch from pencils which I constantly keep sharpened to a very sharp point.

Petals are finished!

Beginning to build color on leaves, stems and bud.

Finished drawing!

This piece is available as note cards and as a fine art reproduction as well.

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