Colored Pencil Progress

Last week, I discovered Colored Pencil Magazine exists. Now I've learned that there is a Colored Pencil Society of America. I'm continually amazed by how much I didn't know about colored pencils, despite using them regularly for 47+ years! 

I've also discovered that I own more colored pencils than I thought I did. I keep my open-stock colored pencils on the paint shelf in the craft room and the complete sets in the craft room closet, plus Trevor has a bunch in his bedroom and more at his desk. Before making my colored pencil swatches, I did what I *thought* was a thorough search of the other places more pencils would be hiding. And yet I continue to find colored pencils here and there. It's a good problem to have, I suppose, but it makes me realize there are a few more drawers and bins in the house that need reorganization. 

Here is my latest colored pencil effort. The pages are from Leisure Arts' Love Grows and colored with Prismacolors (affiliate links).   

I'm really happy with the progress I'm making with blending and shading, thanks to Sarah's videos. Speaking of which, Sarah is on a quest to reach 100K subscribers on YouTube by the end of 2021. Considering how valuable her content has been to me, I'm doing my part to help her out. If you have enjoyed any of her videos I've shared, or want to learn more about colored pencils, subscribe to Sarah's YouTube channel. She's giving away a bunch of prizes as her following grows, so there's some extra incentive for you!

I like to do something with my colored images, but these have me stumped. Ordinarily, I'd fussy-cut them and use them on cards or something. But the many tiny leaves, cactus spines, and line-thin stems make these a very poor choice for fussy-cutting. I used the trimmer to separate the images, thinking maybe I could use them that way. Here they are, with a colored pencil for scale:

If you have any thoughts on how I can use these, let me know!