My Chalk Pastel Drawing Of "Peony"

See my process for creating this chalk pastel drawing of "Peony".

I personally been wanting to do a series of flower faces for a while. For this piece it needed to be bright and colorful! It is spring, which is full of life and energy. I do a lot of horror themed work and this was a good change in pace.

•The Process•

As you can see below I use a lot of implied lines to help your eye travel around the flower petals in a spiral. I then had to use the background to keep your eye within the center. Because I used such a blunt and centered composition, I wanted to continue this theme of symmetry by making the subject looking directly forward. Everywhere outside the face has a lot of energetic, organic lines and the smooth face makes a great contrast and gives the eye a place to rest. And with all these swirling organic shapes everywhere, I knew I needed to anchor the piece was horizontal implied lines (far right image.) My line work is naturally organic and an instructor pointed this out to me one day. Since then I try to incorporate geometric (strong horizontal and vertical) line work to help contrast and strengthen my organic way of working.

See my inspiration gallery here on my blog: https://ashlylovett.com/blog/2016/2/29/peony

•Limited Edition Prints•

I'm excited to announce that "Peony" is now an exclusive print only with RhinoBarkingSparrow.com. 12x12” printed on Heavy Fine Arts 340 gsm paper limited run edition of 20. Love their gold hand embossed stamp. The prints turned out perfect. They look just like the original. :)

More info: rhinobarkingsparrow.com