Rose Hips

Another botanical sketch I forgot to post previously! Coloured pencils on Winsor & Newton sketchbook paper. This paper is not suitable for layering coloured pencil, so I really struggled, but managed eventually to achieve a reasonable range of tones and fairly rich colours.  The scan hasn't done it any favours though - the colours of the different types of hips look very similar here but they actually aren't.

Botanical Sketches

Some more coloured pencil sketches - I did these back ago in the autumn but didn't get round to posting them!  I was trying out different papers with these, trying to figure out which sketchbook paper is best for dry pencil and which works well with watercolour pencils (I used a wash of watercolour pencil as a base layer for the poppy seed heads).

Sycamore Seeds:

Dried Poppy Seed Heads:

Honesty Seed Heads:

Pussy Willow Stems

I wanted to see if I could capture the fuzzy quality of Pussy Willow buds in coloured pencil. I used the embossing technique before adding colour, to retain some bright white lines. I realised afterwards that it would have been much easier to use coloured paper to make the white buds stand out, but overall I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

Adonis Blue Butterfly in Coloured Pencil

My first large butterfly study in coloured pencil. I found the hairy body extremely difficult to capture accurately - with such tiny pencil strokes it's very hard to retain the highlights. I loved using all my blues though - they are the least used colours in my box! (Unfortunately the scanning process has made it look all shade of blue, but actually I used everything from Light Cobalt Turquoise to Indanthrene blue.

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.

Goldfinch on a Teasel

I'm really enjoying drawing birds at the moment. Some of them don't turn out so well but I'm pleased with this one. It's coloured pencil on sketchbook paper.

Based on a reference photo by Darren Bellerby on Flickr (CC 2.0 license)

Bumblebees

Bumblebee sketchbook pages.

And my version of an identification guide of common British bees.  The artist of the original guide kindly gave me permission to use it as a reference guide for my coloured pencil version.

Pied Wagtails

I love Pied Wagtails and their jaunty tail-bobbing. They always seem so cheerful.  These are coloured pencil on sketchbook paper.

Siberian Iris in Coloured Pencil

This is actually an exercise in one of my Billy Showell instructional books (A-Z of Flower Portraits). I did it in watercolour first, but then I decided to also do it in coloured pencil, and I prefer this coloured pencil version.

Coloured Pencil Sketchbooking

Some of my sketchbook pages.