30 Day Challenge

Meanwhile..... I'm working on several projects. Besides the Arum (which still isn't finished) I've also decided to take up the 30 day challenge again. For those of you who are not on Facebook and are not a member of the best group on it (Botanical Artists), the 30 Day Challenge is somewhat of a tradition now. Every year in September the members of this group are invited to join the challenge to paint or draw a botanical subject for 30 days. So every day one finished thingy.
Now because I had to work very hard on yet another project I missed a few days already. Going to catch up in the next few days though. For now I've done 5. Here they are.

Rosa rugosa hip

Rosa glauca hips

Rosa moyesii hip

Clematis x jouiniana 'Praecox'

Amanita muscaria

More of the challenge soon. And for everyone who is not yet a member of the Facebook group (WHY NOT????) here's the link: Botanical Artists. Just request membership. ;)

Learning by Teaching

Today I posted this on my wall:

Last week I had a new student here in my studio. It was great. Going back to the basics and telling her lots about graphite techniques and even more about form and shading. Explaining why you put shadows here and not there, why you should do this and not do that.... wow....
All these things I do so automatically and now I need to explain my every action and decision.
It's not easy when someone asks you so many elementary questions. A wise man told me that it's like teaching a foreigner about your own language without being too familiar with all the grammar rules.

Perhaps it was me being the student, not her...

I needed to let it all sink in I guess before I could come to this conclusion. If you can call this a conclusion. It doesn't matter what it is. It was a good thing and that's what matters.  

So talking about this session with my new student, I thought it would be nice if I could show her how you can use atmospheric perspective in a drawing to create a sense of depth. For making this example I had cut off a twig of a Snowberry shrub near our house. I personally don't like them but just like the Cherry Laurel, it looks fine in black and white ;)

I first made a line drawing (my number 12 drawing for the challenge). 

So I created that same twig (using the line drawing as a base) for the tonal study (the no.13), using a bit of atmospheric (aerial) perspective this time.

The photos here didn't turn out so well. I need to try and make better ones. But you get the idea... hope my student does too ;)

Cherry Laurel Update

I managed to finish the Cherry Laurel today. So here it is. No.10 and 11 of the 30 day challenge.

Graphite Warm-Up

On Wednesday I'll be welcoming a new student in my studio. I haven't met her yet but she sent me some photos of her work. What I saw was very promising. We agreed to go back to basics and start with graphite pencils. She already made some pencil work but it looks a bit rough and unfinished. So we'll dive into the graphite techniques.
I haven't worked in graphite for quite some time. And if you have to start after a long break you feel rusty and a bit clumsy. Like a machine that needs to be oiled and warmed up before working well again. Well, that's how it is for me anyway. And I know this. So, to prevent myself from drawing like a beginner next Wednesday, I ordered myself to a warm-up. And since I'm also working on this 30 day challenge on Facebook, I thought to combine the two. So here they are...

First a leaf from some sort of crab-apple in our street. No idea what kind of Malus it is but I always like the leaves and how they curve. It's my first one and I did feel very rusty. I think it shows too and I made a few stupid mistakes (like working too fast and putting in the veins with an embossing tool) but the leaf itself and the lines worked nicely.

Like I said, I knew this would happen. It always does. So next I tried to work slower but it was a small drawing so it went rather quick anyway. A nice Acorn. I love to draw and paint acorns. No idea why but it's just one of my favourite subjects. It went rather well and although it could have been more detailed and smoother I was happy with it.

Today I started a project that will take at least two days. I think the 30 day challenge should be all 1 day pieces but I divided the drawing in two parts. Today I did the fruits, tomorrow I'll do the leaves. I cut a twig of a Cherry Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus). I really hate that shrub and never thought I would draw it but in graphite everything looks good. I guess it's like photography. If all else fails, do it in Black and White ;)

More later.

Souvenir from Florence

Now that all paintings are finished for the SBA show in London (I framed them yesterday), I wanted to draw something small. And with pencil! After all this time working with the small brushes and watercolours I just had to do a pencil drawing. On my desk I found a small Cypress cone. I found it in Italy last year near the Villa del Trebbio in Tuscany. There were lots of Cypresses on that hill, many of them very old.

 

In a few hours I made this small drawing in my sketchbook. I love drawing pine cones and this one was nice too. I think it's because I can go really black in the shadows. I also love the shape of these cones. Anyway, here it is:

Cypress Cone, Graphite pencil 3,5 x 6 cm

Akebia and a fuzzy practice

My Akebia quinata drawing is still not finished but I'll give you a nice scan of how it looks now. Here it is:

It's so nice to work with graphite again. Now I'll tell you a little about my technique because some people think it is only a very light touch. It is a bit maybe but most important is to use many different kinds of pencils. I use very hard ones (4H) and very soft ones(6B) and some in between of course. One of the most important things is to keep a sharp pencil at all times. So when I draw I have the pencil in my right hand and my manual sharpener in my left. I'm sharpening all the time.
Like in my coloured pencil drawings I layer a lot. In this way I can controle the lights and darks. To make a very smooth looking finish I use a hard pencil or I use a blending stump depending on what effect is needed. Most used tool to get a perfect drawing is my kneadable eraser. I use it all the time, to lift graphite, to add texture, to clean the paper....
Ah, and if you want to make a drawing like this too, be sure to use very smooth paper. I used Bristol for this one but there are other papers that are a bit more creamy and also very smooth.

Now, enough about that... Yesterday I had a bit of time to make a fuzzy Stachys leaf.

It's not a great botanical but I wanted to try out a fuzzy looking texture with my coloured pencils. Last year, when I tried it, I totally failed. I think now it's looking better. Not as good as I had in mind, but it's progress.

This afternoon I want to try out a technique I have in my head to make white flowers with coloured pencils. I never tried this technique so I don't know if it will work at all. In my mind it works very well... now let's see if it works in reality ;)

Arum

I found some drawings last week in an "old" sketchbook. Amongst them was this sketch of an Arum italicum. I made this drawing in October or November last year. This is the moment the Arum makes new foliage. The entire winter it stays green and in the end of spring, beginning of the summer there are huge "flowers" hidden between the leaves. At the end of the summer and in the autumn, the foliage dies and the cones (first hidden inside the flowers) are covered with large orange berries. It is not a very healthy plant (poisonous) but it's very beautiful and interesting all year round.
My idea is to make a drawing of this plant in all these stages. So here's the rhizome and a fresh young leaf. Next I want to draw the flower and finally the orange cone. Not very original I know, there have been hundreds of artists before me that did the same thing. But I just love this plant.

Foot

Last week I started to draw in my new sketchbook. After some weeks of pain in my wrist, I am very happy to say, the pain is almost gone. Of course I can't do everything yet, and some sudden moves still hurt but, most of the time, the wrist is painless. I still can't bend it very well though and that's the reason why I'm not touching my coloured pencils just yet.
This week however, I did my first drawings with graphite pencils. First I made a drawing of Bertus. I made it from a photo. Normally I don't work from photos but Bertus just can't keep still (and I really doubt if he ever will). It is Bertus playing on the beach of Schiermonnikoog last summer. His first time he saw the beach and the sea.

The next drawing I made was a botanical one. Small, but nice. It is a branch from the Climbing Hydrangea next too our front door. It really isn't big....

And yesterday evening I decided to draw my foot. On Flickr there are a lot of people now uploading self portraits. Very nice.... but I am just so scared of drawing my face. I know it will frustrate me enormously. It will drive me absolutely mad.... So this is my self portrait. My foot. And so I started to draw my right foot. I had never made a drawing of my foot before and frankly I thought it would end up in the dust bin. But it didn't. It actually went really well. And after sketching my foot I sketched my ankle, also good enough.... So I sketched some more, calf, knee, thighs... stop... hold on.... Thighs????? Oops, that was a lot of foot!!!!! I just didn't know where to stop. Lucky for me and the rest of the world, the paper stopped before I could. So the thighs is the end of the foot drawing.
Anyway.... I am pretty pleased with this first drawing of my "foot" ;-)

.

Calla

Haven't blogged in a while. But I'll make it up by this one. I've been very busy lately. One of the things that keep me busy these weeks is a basic course in Botanical Drawing with graphite pencils. It's a three day course and is in the Nature museum of Leeuwarden.
Yesterday was the second day of the course. The students had to draw flowers. I had a lot of flowers with me for them to draw. Amongst them also Calla lilies. I never did a Calla Lily before and I thought it might be fun to try one. So I made a start yesterday but couldn't work a lot on this drawing because I had to walk around a lot and help the students (which was a lot of fun btw). So today I finished the drawing. And this is the final result: