I had to use a wide range of colours in this drawing to achieve separation between the flowers, the stems and the grass. I decided to go for hatching and layering techniques for the majority of the piece, with on/off pressure techniques for the flower petals and tick-and-flick applications for the foreground of grass.
Composition
I'm really pleased with my chosen composition. The flowers are central in the drawing, with the tree acting as an enclosure/backbone, and the directional light coming down to the flowers.
I worked from a photograph, which gave a better impression of directional light. This directional light drawn on does look a little artificial/photographic rather than natural, but I think I've made up for it in choosing coloured pencils.
I like the little detail of branches at the top as it draws you in to the negative space of sky and then down to the flowers. I made the angle of the drawing slightly off horizontal to add more interest, so the tree goes slightly inwards as it goes up and the fence isn't quite horizontal, as I didn't want a 'boxed-in' effect.
Overall, I'm pleased with my composition. I maybe could have made the fence slightly more angled to give it a bit more perspective, though.
Form/Depth
The hardest subject to create form for was the tree. Because the back of the tree was shadowed by the directional light it was hard to create its cylindrical shape (where I would normally create darker edges with the foremost part highlighted lighter). The tree could have definitely been better with better planning and more time spent on it. Instead, I rushed it a bit but adding simple layers of tone and simple bark lines. Though, I did try to use the dark/light effect on the bark lines.
I like the form of the pot, but being man-made it was the easiest thing to create form on. The leaves, as a group have a sense of depth to them as I've detailed the foremost leaves and left the background ones simple. I spent a lot of time on the leaves with detail, trying to create form on each individual one. This is perhaps what makes the tree look much worse in quality!
The petals were much harder to create form for as I couldn't use a good range of tones, so I had to use the on/off pressure techniques to use the white paper as highlights. I added lines of orange to work against the white to create depth and form.
Perspective
The shades of the grass needed a lot of control. For the background I needed to use much fainter markings with lighter tones. I then gradually made harder markings with gradual darker tones and adding more and more detail. I think this worked quite well. I didn't want to add every blade of grass and every section of detail so I randomly placed raised areas of grass with neighbouring highlights of white. I didn't use any detail for the trees in the background, either.
I think the branches at the top are massively effective in drawing the eye down. If they weren't there, the viewer would be drawn to the open space at the top and off the picture! They subtly point downwards to the flowers and directional light as well.
Colour
I think the grey-blue tone used for the trees works well against the white/yellow directional light, and it complements the orange tones on the petals. The grass and petals were very hard to separate. I should have toned down the background green shades a lot more to separate the flowers from it. The tree is probably too dark and needs to remain a background subject. Because the flowers are struggling for attention against the green grass, the tree stands out too much. In all, I really like the colours chosen. The yellow is a cheerful colour working well with the sunset. The greens are luscious-looking and not too artificial. The blue-grey tree colour works well against all the bolder colours. And the browns from the tree, pot and fence all roughly match in tones, so as to not include too many colours to be distracting against the yellow petals.
It is really the dark/light tones that need more work in this picture to make the flowers stand out more, and to create more perspective and depth.
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