Progression of Peony.

I saw the most magnificent peony last week in a friends yard,

and knew immediately I wanted to draw it.

Here is a progression of a peony inside my sketchbook.

I started with this amazing Kuretake Bimoji super fine brush pen.

LOVE this pen!

It's easy to get lost when drawing from a reference image,

I had to do my normal pep talking, "keep going, keep going, keep going."

I also of course had to make some "Artist choices" as I call them,

adding a few imaginary petals to make up for gaps and goofs.

Usually I would recommend working light to dark in watercolor,

but of course being a rule rebel I worked from dark to light.

I was painting with my travel Cotman watercolor set,

and my Pentel water brush.

Next I filled in my mid tones, the flower then started to come to life.

And lastly I pulled out my lightest tones,

made a little swimming green background,

and painted "peony time" in my new favorite painty font.

Here is the original photo I was working from, it's clearly more vibrant,

but what fun this little drawing was to make, and it took less than an hour.

And now I have a visual record of a beautiful spring moment with a friend.

Glad I sat down to work, as always. What will you draw today?