Celtic Sword & Helmet

Celtic Sword & Helmet  

(from "Celtic-Inspired Snowflakes" by Marie Scott & Dawn Andrus)

PENCILS

I used a mix of colored pencils from Prang, Crayola, and Prismacolor. 

COLORS

For this very Celtic picture, I wanted to use good old English/Scottish colors, so I chose a red and green complementary color pattern, with purple and light blue thrown in for good measure, and browns and tans for practical purposes.

TECHNIQUE

I have to admit I spent most of my time trying to salvage this picture because my color choices kept not working. But I have a rule that I will not scrap a picture once started, because I'm sure I would find myself scrapping every picture for one reason or another and never get anything finished. Artists are never satisfied, and even if they think they're finished after the last sitting, they find things they'd like to do better. This picture was a special problem.  So my technique on this one was to keep hammering away with one color after the other until it was so thick with pigment, it sunk on the page. :)  Still, it comes off looking fairly Old English after all, which is to say, plain and serviceable.  The idea here is to let you know you aren't the only one who struggles--and just hang in there and learn by experience.

Magnolia

Magnolias  

(from "Flower Snowflakes" by Marie Scott & Dawn Andrus)

PENCILS

I used Crayola and Berol Prismacolor pencils, and smoothed them with petroleum jelly.

COLORS

This is a gorgeous Magnolia design, and I had to do it in the pinks and greens I love most. It is a fairly straight forward complementary color scheme, with touches of yellow, lavender, and light teal.

TECHNIQUE

The pinks and dark pinks I laid in with crayola colored pencils. Then I added vibrant Berol Prismacolor colors on top and smoothed it all with petroleum jelly. This can make for very dramatic color. Then I worked in touches of yellow and lavender on the petal edges. I also used a mix of two greens on the leaves, then added teal blue to the stems and leaf centers. I just love to put in as many touches of different color as I can, even in the dark pinks of the border.  After the picture was done, I scanned it into a photo shop program and flood-filled a light teal border as a cool contrast.

Iris Snowflake

Iris Snowflake  

(from "Flower Snowflakes" by Marie Scott & Dawn Andrus)

PENCILS

I used both Berol Prismacolor and Crayola colored pencils to color this picture. 

COLORS

I chose to mix together four different iris colors in each bloom, instead of coloring the flowers each a different color. It serves to make a pattern of lower reddish petals and upper blueish petals. My colors are red-violet, blue, violet, and blue-violet, with varying greens and touches of yellow and orange. It's particularly fun to stick a little orange alongside the long green leaves as a contrast of vibrancy

TECHNIQUE

This was all colored and shaded using the bright softer pencils of the Berol Prismacolor first, and then I burnished each color with a similarly colored Crayola colored pencil. It made for some vibrant color worked into the paper's tooth.

Green Man

Green Man  (from "Celtic-Inspired Snowflakes" by Marie Scott & Dawn Andrus)

PENCILS

I used mostly Berol Prismacolor pencils in this picture. They are a higher and softer grade of pencil that give great vibrancy of color, and layer well.

COLOR CHOICES

I wanted to do this picture mostly in forest colors rather than fall colors, but I worked in some fall colors simply because I love color. You could call this a kind of neighboring color scheme,(colors beside each other on the color wheel. Greens and neutral browns.), but because of the reds you could also call it a complementary color scheme, (colors across each other on the color wheel. Red & green). I used many colors of green: some layered with blue, some layered with orange or red, and some layered with yellow.

TECHNIQUE

I laid color down in layers, sometimes burnishing with a white pencil in between layers, sometimes not. I also shaded mostly by fading into different colors rather than by shading with one color. That's achieved by shading with one color, then layering with the next being careful to grade in the color gradually. Fun stuff!