Garden of Dreams

This is my reference photo (above) for my colored pencil drawing. I saw this photo of a friend's baby boy, Julian, on social media and just loved the cozy wrapped baby against the colorful background quilt. I loved the sweetness of the little face and wondered if I could incorporate the background pattern onto the baby's blanket sleeper. This has been a work in progress for the past six months, working on it slowly and developing my idea. The images are taken on my iPhone at different times so there is discrepancy in colors and tones. 

I drew out the baby but have to admit, I transferred the quilt pattern onto my Stonehenge drawing paper because I just didn't feel like free handing all those designs. I began with some underpainting of color on the baby's skin. I used Prismacolor and Caran d'Ache Luminance pencils choosing a blue, a green and a pink and now I don't recall exactly which pencils I used. 

I went on to develop more of the baby's face with some pinks, yellows and Prismacolor Burnt Ochre.  I also began incorporating I began some contrast on the baby's sleeper with green, blue, Black Grape then began adding warm yellows (above and below photos). 

I kind of like the beginning photo as it is (above).

I added colors to the baby's face and sleeper bringing the baby almost to completion and then began working on the designs and quilt itself. I added shadowing in blue and violet beneath the baby.

Next I began to gently incorporate the design from the quilt into the baby's sleeper one element at a time to make it work. I am also adding more shadow and color to the baby's sleeper and 

Here I continued to add the pattern softly onto the baby and softened the dark shadows and folds on the quilt, I found them somewhat distracting. I like my result of the sleeping baby wrapped in a garden of little dreams!