I started a new sketchbook with toned gray paper, and drew these botanical studies to try out how strong I can get the colors to show up with colored pencils and water-soluble pastels. I’m quite happy and actually prefer the appearance of pencils and pastels on gray paper to white, though I don’t know how often I’ll want to do studies in colored pencils this detailed and labor-intensive. Water-soluble pastels are much easier to work with, but the paper warps when I apply water, which is very obvious around the amanita mushroom.

I used reference images from a book and some I found online.

As usual, I posted my review of this sketchbook on my sketchbooks comparison post that I’ve been compiling since 2012.