#6 Colored Pencil Contest: Bows

When I first saw the reference, I was so excited to draw the detailed colorful bows. My goal was to make it look as much like the picture as possible. I left the image uncropped until the very end when i cropped a bit on the left side due to time restraints.

 This project was a good learning experience because with each bow, I got faster and better and drawing them. I started drawing while using a wide grid of 4x5. I wanted to stay true to my drawing schools so I strayed away from projecting the image. There ended up being a few minor issues with proportion but it was hard to notice with so much going on in the image.  I also had to get creative with some of the values and colors on the bows because I had a limited number of colored pencils (hopefully santa will bring me a set of Prisma Colors). When I was done with the entire project (after many many hours) I asked for a second opinion of anything I can improve. I was challenged to add a little more value to the shadows and the edges of the bows to make them pop.

Overall, I was very pleased with the end result after hours of work. For the Colored Pencil Magazine's monthly challenge, they awarded it with an honorable mention.