Busy bee

[Danielle123]

I have just completed this coloured pencil painting all free hand, from a photo taken by my husband.  I made on light grey mi-teintes Canson pastel paper 12 x 16 and with Faber Castell polychromo coloured pencil.   I will not use that paper with crayons again because it give you the appearance of golf ball pattern. What i had to do to get rid of that texture was to use the colourless pencil and apply a lot of presure to the paper, nearly got a tendanitis.       so here it is. The colours are a bit more bright than the photo.

Details

[C.Bodine]

Wow, Wow and oh yeah, I forgot! Wow!     

[dennis]

 

[MaryAnne Long]

Beautiful work on this, Danielle.  The bee's wings are so lacy.  The flowers look like spider lilies.  Nice background.

aloha

mea

[Pinuccia]

Oh Danielle it just looks like a photo. Your such a great painter. I think it is just so beautiful. The Bee looks so real well done 

[cyril]

Beautiful , such details ..... Wow 

[BeaSue]

Danielle, this is marvelous! Good to know about the paper. When you do some of the light areas, such as the soft yellow fuzzy part of the bee's head, do you use negative painting? Do you ever use odorless mineral spirits for blending?

[jillh]

Danielle it's fabulous!  Great detail.  I agree Mi-teintes has too much tooth.  You might like to try Strathmore 500 illustration board.  It's a bit pricey but takes a lot of layers.   Also Canson makes an illustration board. Which is a bit cheaper.  And then of course Stonehenge which many color pencil artists are using.  Depends on the effect you are looking for.  For realism I really like the Strathmore 500 board.  One can even use a watercolor wash before using the pencils.  Just make sure it is taped down to stop buckling and make sure it is completely dry before applying the color pencils.

[Danielle123]

  so much Christina, Dennis, Mea, Josie, Cyril, Sue and Jill for your lovely comments and help with the paper, also for taking the time to look at my work.

Mea,  I do not know what kind of flowers it is, i just looked up the spider lillies and it is not quite the same but simillar, it is like many flowers into a ball.

Sue, I did not use any solvent for the blending because I used pastel paper and I am not sure if it would take it. But in the bear space of my paper I just tried it with rubbing alcohol and is seem to work, but my green  is a big area, so I did not want to do it.  As for the yellows in the bee i kind of did negative painting but also i did make some of the paler colours longer at some areas (jagged drawing) because I was not sure if the pale would be showing on darker.  Then I did the brown followed by black also negative drawing into the yellow.  PS i did all the hairs using the sharp point of the pencil in the direction of the hairs.  Hope this makes sence Sue.

Jill Ty for the info, I just purched a drawing pad from Canson 70 lb (it says it is good for final drawing/fine surface/erases cleanly and blends smoothly). I hope it is good paper.  I will keep in mind the strathmore 500 illustration board.    Colour wash ! Interesting.  TY Jill

 

[nolan]

great job Danielle

[Lisa gale]

Outstanding!   So beautiful!   I have some of that paper as well, I flip it over and it's a little smoother

[BeaSue]

  very much for the explanation, Danielle. As a newbie with colored pencils, I'm soaking up as much info as possible.

[sally13]

Wow this is really beautiful Danielle. I love the way you have done the very fine fluffy parts on the bee.

[Danielle123]

  Sally for the encouragement
  Nolan for taking the time to view and comment.
  Lisa for the lovely comment and the info on the paper, I will try it.
 

[Happychappy]

    Beautiful job Danielle.  It is also very interesting to read what works and what doesn't as we are all learning.


   too Jill for the Strathmore illustration board information. I must try and get hold of some but there aren't any fine art stores around me and since the Canadian dollar has dropped so much against the American dollar, we don't go across the border as much anymore.  However, I shall make online enquiries and see what I can come up with. Thanks again for the info.


Patricia