Teresa Wentzler Art

I haven’t done an intense floral close-up in awhile, and I’ve gotten the itch once again. What can I say? I’m a total fool for peonies. Always have been. Ever since smelling them in my grandmother’s garden in June, especially when the dew began to evaporate. The old-fashioned spicy scent always takes me back!

They come in so many varieties. There are intensely petaled full snowball-like flowers. There are also more delicate, poppy-like types with fewer paper-y looking petals…and everything in between!

This is the image that caught my attention. It popped up on my Pinterest feed. (without any attribution, unfortunately! I’ve searched and searched and can’t find any copyright information. If you know who the photographer is, please let me know in the comments!)

The things (aside from the flowers themselves) that drew me to this image were:

1.) The wide range of values: from the almost white areas of highlights on the petals to the very dark flower centers and background. Lots of drama. And a more effective translation to black and white from color.

2) All of those luscious, luxurious petals have rather blurred/indistinct detail. This allows me almost total freedom in rendering the textures and botanical details with pen. Yep, I’m making a lot of it up.

3.) The flowers are not perfect individual specimens. They are pushed together, crowding each other into more interesting shapes. The petals become abstracted: less realistic. Hopefully, this makes the image more interesting to view.

This one is going to take some time, but here it is so far:

I’ve cropped the reference photo as you can see. Techniques used so far: simple line, contour, and cross hatching.

Materials: Copic Multiliner pens in various sizes on smooth bristol paper. Size: @6.5″ X 9″

Confession: I was going to try to use dip pens for this piece. However, my hand is not as steady as it used to be, and I tend to drop things. I knew this was going to be a long slog, so I decided not to risk dropping a fully loaded dip pen onto work that has been a large time investment. (It’s happened. Not fun.) I chose technical pens instead.

I have found that working on several different projects in rotation is more to my liking these days. I prefer this instead of doggedly pursuing one drawing at a time, which is a total switch from before. (Unless I have a deadline, that is!) Switching between projects helps me to reset my concentration. It better enables me to see a project’s weak (and strong) points when I return to it.

Some close-ups and a more in-depth explanation on technique in a future post. Stay tuned!

So, what flowers hold specific memories for you? And if you’re an artist, what techniques do you use to capture them?