Suddenly Stunning Rose Pencil Drawing

Suddenly Stunning Rose Pencil Drawing

The thinking behind the composition of the pencil sketch for Suddenly Stunning Rose:

1. I drew lines defining the armature of the panel that I would use to draw the rose.
2. I started thinking about how I was going to keep people’s attention riveted to the artwork.
3. I started asking questions.
   1. What makes this rose different?
   2. What makes this rose special?
   3. How can I make this rose into a fine art oil painting?
   4. What colors do I want to use?
   5. What kind of spatial relationships appear to be going on?
   6. What are the big shapes?
   7. How will I divide up the viewing plane?
   8. What are the most interesting elements?
   9. What is distracting in the scene?
   10. What is magical?
   11. Where should the rose’s bloom be placed?
   12. I started darkening in the big secondary shapes, light at first, working my way to the darks.  It was my first step in developing tonal relationships.
   13. I thought about spatial harmonies.
   14. I thought about tonal harmonies.
   15. I thought about shape harmonies.
   16. I slowed down and really looked at what I was drawing.
   17. I considered what I wanted to do.
   18. I wanted to know completely where I would end before I started drawing.
   19. I asked as I was drawing, “How is it shaping up? Are all the parts synchronizing? Is it beautiful?”
   20. I used a blending stump to blend the background into a soft backdrop for the rose.
   21. The drawing is for an oil painting so it has more harsh lines than it would if it was just going to be a pencil drawing. 
   22. I drew the shapes very clearly that I wanted to emphasize for smooth sailing when I begin to paint the rose.
   23. After using the armature of a rectangle a few times to compose your paintings, you will fall in love with it as it pretty much composes your art for you. 
   24. Don’t you just love how a rose unfolds before you revealing all the force of its beauty?  From a thorny stem it bursts into the most celebrated of flowers.  The gift of passion from one lover to another.
   25. I softened the edges with a blending stump and established the values in the rose’s leaves. 

This is a scatter brained overview of the composition and design of this graphite pencil drawing but I hope it will give you a few ideas for your next sketch.  Thank you so much for dropping by Boyd Greene Fine Art for a browse it is so appreciated and happy drawing and a very good day to all.