Coloured Pencils with Janie Pirie

On Janie Pirie Botanical Coloured Pencil Workshop – 27 June 2025

On a hot, sunny day with Dedham’s rose gardens looking at their finest, a group of DAS members gathered in the Assembly Rooms for a full-day workshop. Award-winning botanical artist Janie Pirie taught us some of her techniques for using coloured pencils to capture the essence of a beautiful rose in full bloom.

Working from dark to light and using needle-sharp pencils to outline an area before applying colour in tiny circles, we learned how to press pigment into the paper to achieve the rich intensity of colour that features in Janie’s work. Through a combination of demonstration and 1:1 tuition, Janie showed us how to blend colours together and use an embossing tool to achieve the delicate veination of rose leaves.

With less than six hours to work on a subject that originally took Janie 120 hours, few of us completed our rose, but we all came away with a solid understanding of her main techniques and tips to help us in our own practice.

By Elizabeth West