ORIGINAL CONTEMPORARY MIXED MEDIA ARTWORK BY COLLEEN SANCHEZ

DILLENIA PLANT

Original mixed media contemporary tropical artwork by Colleen Sanchez

10 x 13 Graphite, artist colored pencil, conte on Stonehenge

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Lately I've renewed my love for black and white art and photography, and interestingly enough one of the group art blogs I belong to posted a challenge for November - create a piece in black and white with one color object. This is a challenge made to order for me, it brought back so many memories of the hours I spent drawing with graphite and or pen and ink when I was a teen. This picture was very time consuming but absolutely a labor of love.

First I played with some of my photos from Ho'omaluhia Gardens, here in Hawaii and came up with this composition. Next I did a very loose outline of the major shapes, lightly toned a few areas with graphite saving my whites and then just focused on shape and value. The piece is really done in a more classic style with many layers built up to get the deeper values. I used a little conte to get some of the darks and of course a variety of artist colors to do the seed pods.

The Dillenia plant originates from tropical rain forests mainly in Asia. It has a lovely yellow bloom that precedes the pods. I thought the pods were so interesting though, that I wanted to portray them rather than the flower.