52 hours in the making, this A4 coloured pencil landscape is a commission from Carla Bothma, many years after the first commission I did for her. It is for a friend’s birthday present. My first helicopter in many years, I learned that helicopters are a lot more interesting to draw than fixed wing aircraft because of all the movable parts, but also much more time consuming. I am going to have to add on extra time for coloured pencil drawings too, as the 2 coloured pencils are to date the only ones I have under-quoted time to completion on. I think its because I create the drawing as a graphite then shade in colour after lifting the graphite out.

I had a beautiful, detailed photo to work from and the photographer really picked an apt background for this largely red helicopter, look how the bright green foliage brings out the red? (The miracle of complimentary colours).