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robertsloan2 — Asiatic Lily
Published: 2007-03-16 05:03:28 +0000 UTC; Views: 2007; Favourites: 26; Downloads: 37
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Description
8.5" x 11" colored pencil on paper.An asiatic lily and bud done from life on paper, from a bouquet that ~HeraldoftheAbyss bought for ~kitten42 last fall. I loved the shapes and patterns of the flowers and wound up sketching in the kitchen from life, color keying on a scrap and doing most of the background around the pencil line sketch working from the negative space. I went back in a couple of times just to make sure of my textures, too, this was done from life.
It's one of the best times I've ever drawn something from the negative space first and then detailed it, if you're wondering what that is or how to do it -- I did the outline with a 6H pencil and then went around it with the blue background before drawing any leaves or petals or stems.
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Comments: 35
I don't know if I told you this but in the summer I did an oil painting inspired by this. I scanned it today, it is dry.
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Oh, that came out great! Congratulations! I posted some critique on it, and saw that someone else explained about the dark blue sky to you. If your blue is a dark blue, just add some white and mix on the palette till it's smooth and sky blue colored -- then as you work downward add a little more white and mix so that it makes a smooth gradient. It's very easy on oils to blend colors so that they form a smooth gradient.
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Very lovely work. I think you got the folds of the petals just right, and the shading is beautiful.
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Thank you! I love doing florals, something about it is very relaxing.
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You handle colored pencils so nicely. The only thing I have to say about this little treasure is that the color seems flat to me. Its like there are no shadows or highlights.
I can't believe you sketched this in with a 6H. The harder leads drive me crazy. I tend to sketch with the exact opposite, 6B. I've found that even the 2H can leave a groove in the paper and that peeves me lol.
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I did a little shadowing, but the lighting when I did it was diffuse and so I didn't see much. I also had to sit down while finishing it up. You're right, I probably could do a bit more shading, but I like this one as it is. I'll keep that in mind on later ones.
Oh yes. I like using the very hard leads for sketching, especially if I want the sketch lines to vanish. I go lightly so they are barely there and they do stay clean, don't smudge, sharpen to a very fine point. I sketch with a 6B if what I want is a pencil drawing with strong visible graphite lines, something I can scan the sketch -- but I know with that, the sketch will be visible through the colored pencils.
I also sketch occasionally with Berol Col-Erase colored pencils -- they are erasable and have exactly the texture and hardness of an HB pencil, in 24 colors that match Prismacolor and Verithin. So using a related hue will make the sketch vanish entirely into the colored pencils art and not leave graphite underdrawing values where they aren't wanted -- especially if the sketch has intricate lines in highlight areas.
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Those colored pencils sound freakin awesome! I'm gonna have to look them up, I didn't know they existed. Definitely adding to the wishlist lol.
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They are awesome -- and they are CHEAP!!! Here's the link to them on Blick. Even at stores the 24 set is no more than about $15 or so, sometimes less. They're just not that expensive but I love the quality and texture of them -- and they do match every other colored pencil product Prismacolor makes.
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Thank you! Go read News > Art News > Traditional, the higher-rated version of Product Review and Demo: Colored Conte Crayons -- I listed and displayed Stock Photo #6 and did the demo Male Mallard from it (the final version's also up in my Gallery now).
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Absolutely beautiful! Good background color choice as well.
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Oo another beautiful flower! <3 That's very good =3 I like it! <3
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Thank you! I loved doing this one. Lilies, gladiolas, irises, anything with large distinct petals is a lot of fun for me.
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You're welcome X3 I'd like doing those...if I could get the stems and those vein-like things (don't know what they're called 
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Veins. The vein-like markings on petals and leaves are veins, when I took botany in college that's all they referred to them as. There's other terms for the large vessels you see in wood to carry sap, but I forgot that term. In leaves and petals they're just veins.
I tend to get the vein patterns right if I'm either working from life or a good detailed photo in light that shows them, then take my time and be very, very careful. I do them in tonal rendering. Depending on light, either they look like tiny shadowed indentations with a highlight next to them, or they pop up rounded with a shadow on one side and a highlight on the lightside but very tiny -- so drawing overlarge is a good way to get in all the details without going nuts by needing a needle point pen or three-hair brush. I often just sketch them with loose strokes and go for the most obvious shadowed areas, not necessarily carrying through to the edge -- lately I've been experimenting with implying structures more than fussily drawing in every detail.
I got better at the impressionistic casual strokes by doing seriously fussy, careful drawings way larger than life first, repeatedly.
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Gorgeous. 
Judging by the color scheme and petal shapes, I'd say that this is actually an Oriental lily, not an Asiatic one. It's true that they're very similar, but parallel petal color differences (like this) are highly unusual in Asiatics, as is the pink coloration and backward curl of the petals. Asiatics also do not have ruffled petals.
Regardless, this is a very well-drawn and beautiful lily. 
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I can see how Oriental and Asiatic could get mixed up as terms for describing lilies that came from a grocery store florist section. It was gorgeous, and I drew it as I saw it. The spotted petals appealed to me as easy to detail. Thank you!
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Thank you! I wound up drawing in the blue before I got to the lily, when I realized that I'd be leaving the bulk of the petals un drawn on I knew I had to do something for a background. I think I did this one with my Koh-I-Noor woodless colored pencils, that set is a lot of fun and I recall filling in with its blue without sharpening much because I was wearing it down at an angle instead of blunting off a normal tip.
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Oh wow, that's so beautiful!
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Purrr thank you! I'm still catching up scanning things I did last summer and fall when I was offline. Last night it was the two pieces I had hanging in the living room. They need matting and rehanging, I just had them pinned up with push pins.
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Your lily is beautiful; deep and light colors make it very vivid
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Thank you! I stared at them for days before getting inspired to draw it before it withered. Can't wait till this spring when we get some flowers going -- we won't have early bulb flowers but I'm buying some bulbs this year so that next spring we do get irises and daylilies and other large easily drawn bulb flowers!
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That sounds wonderful! Flowers really inspire to paint!
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Oh definitely. I love doing the ones with distinct strong shapes and large, intricate petals.
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