A strawberry for a warm day

Prismacolor colored pencil on Stonehenge paper

(click to enlarge)

My red family of pencils is getting a workout lately. Maybe it's this almost-100 degree weather that has me thinking warm tones. (Wait, shouldn't I be drawing something like ice-blue flowers to cool off?)

Last summer, I bought these lovely strawberries from a street vendor in London. Rounder than the ones grown here in California; they reminded me of wild strawberries. Aren't they beautiful?

I've long admired the beautiful work of botanical artist Ann Swan, and whenever I think of drawing a strawberry, I can't stop thinking about her beautiful examples such as this one.  She's so much better at rendering the leafy bracts at the top, and the seeds—or "pips"—on my "model" weren't terribly prominent, but this is my homage to the talents of Ann Swan.

Oh, And here are a few work-in-progress shots:

preliminary sketch, ready for the light box tracing

The final burnishing is so much fun. I've been using Prismacolor's harder Verithin pencils for that step. Now, I think I'll go sit out in the shade and enjoy some of the leftover strawberries that didn't get to be models!