Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Petunia Mystery Solved

Petunia Grisaille2

Petunia – Grisaille

Copyright Valerie Jones

The petunia was done with the grisaille technique of layering grays (in this case, graphite) with colored pencil. The grays being laid down first allows the shadows to be in place, thus a lesser need for more layers of color in the shadow areas. I think this took me around 5 hours to complete. I didn’t keep track of my time very well. It is done on a 4”x6” piece of smooth bristol paper.

  • Merriam-Webster’s definition of grisaille -

grisaille

Main Entry: gri·saille

Pronunciation: \gri-ˈzī, -ˈzāl\

Function:noun

Etymology: French, from gris gray, from Middle French

Date: 1848

: decoration in tones of a single color and especially gray designed to produce a three-dimensional effect

3 comments:

Rose Welty said...

Valerie, this is a beautiful piece! Well done.

Jo Castillo said...

Valerie, that is just gorgeous. I love the texture but you still see a smooth soft petal. Nice work.

Teresa Mallen said...

Ah you have added colour! Lovely!! I especially like how you chose to crop the piece.