Grassy Waters Illustration

Hi Friends!

For my final illustration from the Grassy Waters trip, I decided to depict one of the various air plants we saw while exploring. Bromeliaceae are commonly found in the Everglades region of South Florida. This particular species is the Tillandsia x smalliana.

I was extremely intrigued by their shape and bright coloring, so I decided to illustrate it! Unfortunately, I did not take process pictures as I was working on this piece but I will explain my process and what materials I used.

This piece initially began as a watercolor piece, however, I was struggling to achieve an accurate color so I decided to pivot and try out colored pencils instead. I used Winsor and Newton watercolor for the base and layered Prismacolor pencils over top. I utilized multiple varieties of red, plum, purple, orange, yellow, and white to complete this piece. I very rarely use colored pencils, so I had to do some relearning when it came to blending and layering colors together.

In lighter areas, placed very thin layers of reds and oranges together and then blended with a lighter pencil, such as a cream, light pink, or white. For shaded areas, I utilized various shades of purples and plums and carefully blended it into the reds to create a seamless shadow.