Colouring Books for Practice

I've just discovered that botanical colouring books are a really fun way to practice shading techniques and try out colour mixes.

I wanted to find the perfect layering recipe to achieve rich dark colours for 'black' berries like elder and blackberries in coloured pencil, so I started out just drawing circles or rough freehand berries for my experiments, but then remembered that I had a couple of  (never used) colouring books which included images of blackberries and other fruits, so I got them out and had a go.

It was great! It was so much fun that even after I figured out how to do the blackberries, I wanted to finish the page. I'm obviously not going to stop doing my own drawings, but for practice, relaxation and stress-free fun, I'm definitely going to carry on using colouring books!!

This page was from the (very beautiful and luxuriously bound...) colouring book 'The Flower Year' by Leila Duly. Her artwork is absolutely gorgeous - really inspiring.

Page from 'The Flower Year' colouring book by Leila Duly, coloured using coloured pencils.

Crab Apples

I'm trying out different sketchbook papers, to see which I like best. Some work much better with coloured pencils than others. Here's a study of crab apples I did on Winsor and Newton sketchbook paper. I like the brightness of the colours with this paper.