Wax Bloom

I’ve been working on this piece of my father-in-law for the past week or so, but have been largely unhappy with it until today; which is not to say I am completely pleased with it now.

Colored Pencil on Pastelbord | 6.5 x 14"

This is my second start on this particular drawing, the first being a small 5×7" piece similar to my last drawing but I quickly realized there was no way I’d be able to achieve the level of detail I wanted at that size. I’m still not getting the details I want, so maybe I should have gone even bigger.

Technically what you see here is a third start, because after the first few layers of color I put down, things got muddied and blurry and I ended up pulling about two hours of work off the support with packing tape.

I feel like I’m starting to get a better feel for what needs to be done now, though, and I’m really appreciating the oil pencils I’m using in conjunction with my usual wax based pencils as they layer nicely over the wax pencils even when things get thick.