How I draw the PEONY coloring page

Drawing flowers is my way to not be bored

The last couple of days I practiced some boring anatomy stuff. I hate gesture drawing but I did it anyway (in my own way).

So I needed some color in my life. Drawing flowers is my prefered way to have some relaxing time and the peony is all around in the YouTube bullet journal channels. I tried this flower before and I failed. The peony I chose was too chaotic and I had no clue how to abstract the thing.

Choose a simple reference

This time I searched for a flower with simpler petals. I found a picture on Pixabay and thought: Why not. To draw the color-range may a bit tricky but the petals are doable.

My goodness, I worked my way hard through this project.

Tracing helps to understand the reference

Tracing helps me a lot to understand the shapes and forms of a reference. But: I want to learn something with every project I burden myself with. My motivation to learn to draw is very high. I am no longer a complete beginner, but I haven't really developed many routines that make drawing less strenuous. Every step needs to be well thought out. I often have to learn certain skills in order to successfully complete a project.

Before I start tracing, I first draw my own sketch to familiarize myself with the object. Then I throw this sketch away. That's why I can't show it in the case of this Peony. Why am I throwing it away? I don't want to burden myself with my inability to get the reference proportions right.

Playing with the digital pipette (color picker)

This peony was wonderful to trace. I struggled figuring out the right colors for my digital exercise. Direct color picking is not really an option to get the colors of a reference right. I learned this the hard way. To analyze the color range I played with the color picker and the color wheel. By this I mean using the eyedropper and the color wheel for analysis and choosing your own colors based on that.

I found out, that the peony has a color range from pink to orange and back. There is a little bit of purple, but not much. I did three petals digitally and after that I felt ready to draw the Peony with alcohol markers on paper.

Draw practice sheets before turnig on the camera

Before I turned on the camera to film a YouTube Video. (Link opens the video how I draw the peony.). I drew three practice sheets. I tore up the first sheet in disgust and threw it away. With the second practice sheet, I was frustrated that I couldn't get the color gradient of the flower to my satisfaction.

I draw guidlines for the color range

So I went back to the digital sketch and drew a few guidelines. I reduced the opacity of these lines to 25% and then to 30% for the final version. I later regretted the 30 percent because unfortunately the guidelines don't disappear under the marker ink. At 25 percent they do.

By the way, this is the first time I've blended marker colors together. I've watched several videos about it on YouTube beforehand.

A little glitter for the peony drawing

For the highlights I chose white gouache and mixed in a bit of glitter paint.