1512a Tulipa Head

Botanical Illustration. Artist Code: 1512a. Completed 5 July 2015. Original NFS. Polychromos Oil Pencils. Unframed sketch on 160gsm paper6” x 5”. 

For Christmas 2014 I treated myself to a 120-pencil set of the Faber & Castell Polychromos oil pencils—they were on offer for half price, and I felt it was such a bargain—although I had no idea how to use them! Each year I receive notification of courses at the Cambridge Botanic Gardens and noticed a one-day course for pencil painting, 16 October 2015. So I enrolled. This tulipa, in the style of the old Dutch Masters, is my first attempt at using the pencils so that I was not entirely ‘green’ when attending the course. They are not as easy as I thought,and require much delicate handling and patience to acquire desired effects. However, the one-day course gave me the basics so now I feel more confident about producing artwork with the pencils. They do feel rather nice to work with, and I know it is practice that will make perfect.