My Dreamy Secret Garden

Light and purposeful strokes for the background

This was my first ever project using Polychromos oil-based pencils. The image is from Johanna Basford's Secret Garden book. I was very careful in applying the lines lightly on the background at first. I wanted to achieve a soft, purple night sky look.
After making some headway into the page I realized that that wasn't the only color I wanted to put as the background after remembering a comment on someone's work which pointed out that it's ok to use different colors especially because the image we desire should be enchanting and not practical. For Basford's works, at least. So I introduced pale orange which smudged the middle of the page.

The good thing about working by yourself is that others barely notice your smudges unless you declare it outright, which I did haha! One artist friend appreciated the mottling effect (I swear I didn't know about that word until then). 

MOTTLE

ˈmädl/

verb

gerund or present participle: mottling 

1. mark with spots or smears of color.

   
   

   "the cow's coat was light red mottled with white"

   
   

   synonyms:

   blotchy, blotched, spotted, spotty, speckled, streaked, streaky, marbled, flecked, freckled, dappled, stippled; More piebald, skewbald, brindled, brindle, pinto, calico; informalsplotchy "mottled horses"

noun

1. 1.

   an irregular arrangement of spots or patches of color.

   
   

   "the ship was a mottle of khaki and black"

   • a spot or patch forming part of a mottled arrangement.

     adjective: mottling

     
     

     "the mottles on a trout"

     
     

     
     

     Origin
     

     

     late 18th century: probably a back-formation from motley.

Translate mottling toUse over time for: mottling

For the finishing touches I used Wink of Stella brush, clear. I learned that to be able to freely squeeze the ink out of the pen tube you have to remove the black ring in the middle which works as a cap of some sort. For proper storage you have to replace the ring.