Shades of White

I am pretty sure that the folks who do beautiful flower paintings are no in trouble - that's you Rita and Janina.   But I had a great time doing this picture and absolutely love the color in the petals.  While my yellow solvent added some extra issues, especially in the white areas, this is untouched with no gouache in the white areas.  Will leave it on the board and determine down the road if I want to add that in.
This is taken indoors, and I definitely want to get a pic of it outside, but raining and cloudy today so ...  I may try this again with pastels as I think I'd like the soft texture on this as well and since I have a thing about hard edges, the blendability of pastels would give smoother transitions I think.   
Again I tried to create a self-mat by leaving 1" around the edges and even though I used tape to mask it I still ended up, due to the tooth of the paper, with little seepages - so I did use some of the white gel pen to try to cover up those dribbles and think it is clean enough that I am not going to use an additional mat. 

Comments

Rita Vaselli said…
Dear Nelvia,you captured perfectly the various white of  magnolia flower, giving the whole structure and volume. A flower that is difficult succeeded very well, from your hand   artistic!
July 21, 2014 at 4:56 AM
hmuxo said…
Beautifully painted, Nelvia.. The different shades of white came through perfectly.
July 21, 2014 at 7:58 AM
Nancy Goldman said…
I love this Nelvia! Does the solvent make the colors more smooth looking? I've always just used white or a colorless burnishing pencil to achieve that. It's a lot of work though which is probably why I rarely use colored pencil as a medium. I love the look of it but I'm just a bit too lazy. : )
July 22, 2014 at 3:38 PM
Nelvia said…
Thank you Rita, coming from you I am pleased as you definitely are the flower master (love them). I want to,try again doing something different as I love the flower and also the colors in this one.
July 23, 2014 at 8:06 AM
Nelvia said…
Hi Hilda, funny thing there was another lady who posted the same picture at the same time doing in watercolor. Good comparison, definitely not watercolor look but it's own. Always appreciate your stopping by.
July 23, 2014 at 8:08 AM
Nelvia said…
The solvent does thin out the color and tends to leave it a matte flat surface on which you can add more layers. This is like adding alcohol to pastel base as it fills in the tooth of the paper faster. Using the colored papers too with CP speeds up the color pencil process and gets it done! I still do burnish iIn parts, kills the hand though.
July 23, 2014 at 8:10 AM
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