Terri @robichon,
Those beautiful flowers are a sight for sore eyes with this gloomy and soggy weather in Marshall. Thank you for sharing with us! I have been meaning to ask about permission to draw them but you beat me to it! Thank you as well for your generosity!
Sonia
Hi Sonia @Meme5
You and anyone at The Virtual Instructor have my blanket permission to use ANY of my photos as a reference for artwork, with no requirement to give me photo credit. All of these flowers have been cropped, so if you want a different size or shape just let me know and I can email it to you.
Terri
Dear Terri, lovely - when did you learn to be a photographer? Did you realize that the crimson red flower does have a butterfly in it? Two petals do make a perfect shape. Thanks for sharing and thanks for these references.
Buddy
Hi Buddy.
In 2017 and 2018 I was president of the local photography club in the small community where I live. I learned a lot from fellow club members. Lots of friendly competition for our monthly photo contests. Plus I have taken at least one photo every day since 2009. That’s a lot of practice. I consider myself an advanced amateur.
Terri
I bet that many artists here will be receiving new art supplies for Christmas. It’s a good idea to make color reference charts (especially when the supplies are new). Here is a copy of the chart that I use. I thought some of you may want it for yourself. I print it on letter size 140# cotton paper which works well for many media. I’m also attaching a photo of how I used it for my recently purchased Derwent - Inktense pencils.
Terri (with 2 r’s)
Since these are watercolor pencils, I activate the bottom half of each square to see how it changes the color. In the photo above I have completed that activation for the left page, but not the right page yet. This was also a great way for me to get a feel for how the media works - good practice before using it on an actual drawing.
Terri @robichon
How generous of you to share this. I will be using it for sure! Thank you 
Sonia
This is so great, Teri, thank you! Though for european paper sizes, the print out would not work, I appreceate your swatches of all 100 colors of these pencils. I do have a small set of 24 and bought some colors in addition.
On my screen, some colors do look very closed to one another. Especially the reds, blues and darker browns. Is this just my screen?
Yeah, aren’t we all art supplies additcted?
At least I am.
May you all have wonderful Christmas and to those, who don’t celebrate, may you have a peaceful time.
Buddy
Thank you, that is so nice and kind of you.
@siffermus oooohhhhhhh….I saw them a few days ago for my first time….how do they do and what is up with the colorrange?
and 12 Derwent Chromaflow AS a present for myself.
I tried some ways to get Prismacolor Premier and it did not work…on this path I found an article about Derwent Chromaflow which included the information that Derwent created them for the US market AS a pendant to the prismacolor. I cannot trest this in the end, but it made me interested in trying Chromaflow pencils.
@Buddy Big Yes! The interest in new material never stops😇
I whish you and all of you and us😌a wonderful time🙌
I own the Derwent drawing and the Cretacolor megacolor! I use them both in my colored pencil drawings. The Derwent drawing are thicker compared to derwent lightfast, prismacolor or polychromos. Also correct me if I’m wrong, but they don’t come in a set larger than 48.
I like the Cretacolor Megacolor’s creamy and opaque consistency. I don’t use them too often because I tend to reach for others wiith more range of colors.
Sonia
Happy Christmas! And - on the 1’st of October Derwent released a new set of the Derwent Drawing pencils with a range of 72 colours. I had the small set and love using them, so I signed up for the big set.
Hi Elina,
The Drawing Pencil from Derwent is a thick pencil with a very thick core. THey a super creamy wax based pencils. They are nicknamed “the fur and feather pencil”. They allow you to cover large areas in no time. They also have very high lightfast ratings. You can check out the review of them over at the Art Gear guy - he makes good and in depths reviews. Because they are so soft, they don’t stay sharp for long, and they are very intense colours allowing for very rich layers. I drew a tiger in an afternoon with these bad boys, which world usually have take days to do. And “the big bad boys” is a nick name that Bonny Snowdon has given them, that’s how she refers to them.
Have a lovely Christmas. I wish you the best.
Terri@robichon what incredible detail. I can see how this would be extremely helpful and admire your precision in creating such a chart. I’d like to try it with my watercolor pencils.
Happy Christmas everybody!
Congratulation for these pencils, @Elena. I got a set, when there had been only 24 colors if them released. You will love them, if you like smooth, waxy pencils. They work very well together with prismacolors.
It’s been a while since anyone posted on this topic, but I have something that I thought was worth sharing. My good friend and fellow Virtual Instructor member (Sonia @Meme5 ) told me about ChatGPT.com - a free site to go to and play with AI. It can create up to 5 images for you each day based on your request.
Since I’m 70 years old, I often need someone who is younger to teach me about this new stuff and I’m so grateful for the help I got with this.
This is an example of how helpful this resource can be for an artist. I am planning to do a scratchboard drawing of a racoon. I took the photo myself when one visited my deck. The thing is that I wanted the racoon to be sitting on a branch, instead of the deck railing. I put in the request to ChatGPT and here is the result. I’m posting my original photograph, and the ChatGPT version with the branch. Now I just need to draw it.
Terri
Something tells me you would’ve find out on your own about ChatGPT. Facebook is being overloaded with trends of images generated by AI which ate so fun! But it is also a great resource in many ways. Some people at school use it to ask recipe ideas based on ingredients they have at home 
…not me, I don’t cook anymore haha…. Shortcuts are always a welcome bonus!
The editing of your photograph is flawless!
Sonia
