As part of my ongoing Blooming Marvelous May and Miniature May art challenges, I created this expressive blue cornflower miniature artwork using a blend of traditional and digital techniques. This piece focuses on strong contrast, bold outlines, and layered textures while still capturing the organic feel of a real flower. The vivid blue petals and graphic ink lines give the artwork an almost stained-glass-inspired appearance, while the textured colored pencil work helps preserve the handmade feel of the original drawing.

For this artwork, I started with a mechanical pencil sketch and refined the structure using a kneaded eraser before layering in colored pencil for the main color work. I then used India ink pen and acrylic paint pen to strengthen the outlines and highlights throughout the piece. After the traditional portion was complete, I edited the artwork digitally using Procreate and Snapseed to help sharpen the presentation and unify the overall composition.

This piece is part of my effort to continue catching up on the art challenges throughout the rest of the month. While I fell behind on the original schedule, I’m now planning on posting around two posts and/or videos a day focused on challenge-related artwork and behind-the-scenes content. That means more flower studies, mini illustrations, process videos, and experimental mixed-media pieces are on the way.

The cornflower itself felt like a perfect subject for this challenge because of its naturally bold shape and intense blue coloration. Rather than aiming for strict realism, I leaned more into expressive outlines and exaggerated petal shapes to create something energetic and stylized while still recognizable as a botanical subject. The result is a miniature floral piece that blends illustration, sketchbook aesthetics, and mixed-media experimentation together into a compact composition.

If you’d like to support my artwork, prints of this piece are available through my store.

You can view the artwork here:
Blue Cornflower Miniature Study Print Listing

You can also follow along as I continue working through the Blooming Marvelous May and Miniature May challenges with more flower studies and miniature artworks throughout the month.