Just practising

Thank you everyone who commented and shared their views on blogging on my last post. I am glad that there are still many of us out there, who value blogs and are continuing blogging.

I've been busy these past few weeks mainly practising in my sketchbook. As I've mentioned earlier, I'm exploring botanical art at the moment and I'm taking a class to learning more about it. At the moment, it's all about drawing and graphite. I enjoyed drawing the tone scales, I never really quite realised how much difference there is between different brands. I always sort of assumed that an HB pencil was an HB pencil. Well, it isn't. My favourite brand is the classic Faber Castell 9000. This is also the lightest of the ones I tried out and it gives a good variation of tone. Caran d'Ache Grafwood and Staedtler Mars Lumograph are nice too. The Derwent Graphic I didn't really like. They were almost impossible to sharpen. For botanical drawing, you need a super sharp point. Often this is achieved by sharpening your pencils using a craft knife to cut away the wood, and sand paper to get a really long and pointed point. Here I used a new sharpener by M+R, which sharpens the pencil to a concave point. It sharpened the Faber Castells to a lovely point, the Grafwood are too big for the sharpener, the Mars Lumographs were okay too. But with the Graphics, the leads just kept breaking off. It was okay for the 2H, H and F, but for the rest, it was pretty much impossible. I have a few of those pencils, and I'll use them for other drawings, but definitely not for botanical drawing. Taking the time to make these tonal strips is certainly a very good way to getting to know your pencils - and finding your favourites!

I'm also practicing leaf drawing. And I still have a lot of practising to do! i have to admit that I became a bit sloppy with this one and the result is a very irregular drwaing. But it will be useful as a measure for my progress. In traditional botanical darwing, the subjects are drawn in actual size, which can be rather tricky. It's amazing how much detail there is in a leaf! A magnifying glass is quite essential, not only for getting a closer look at the leaf, but also for drawing. Drawing through a magnifiying glass is actually quite amazing! Especially when you look at your drawing afterwards and see the even layers that you would have had difficulties to achieve with the naked eye.
I started a new leaf but only got as far as the outline. Which means I now have to start all over again. That's the problem with leafs. You have to work relatively quick, as they wilt, some faster than others. Or maybe that's the advantage of drawing leaves. Once you've started, you have to keep going. No room for procrastination.

I also started working through Sue Vize's book Botanical Drawing Using Graphite and Coloured Pencils. I love the good old pencil, and am discovering the potential of coloured pencils. I wasn't aware how much you can actually mix colours by layering them. The colour wheel was done using just three colours, Cadmium Yellow, Ultramarin Blue and Alizarin Crimson.

There's lots of exercises in the book with both graphite and coloured pencils. They're a useful way to pracise your drawing skills as well as getting to know your tools. There are of course exercises in actual botanical art as well, I just haven't got so far yet.

Last weekend, there was a Medial Market here in Zürich, and my Mum and me went to have a look around. It was very nicely done, with a great mix of stalls selling hand made goods, food and entertainment, and wonderful costumes. It wasn't quite as hot as it is now yet, but I still wouldn't have wanted to wear some of those costumes, they look so hot!

The guards at the main entrance to the market - very popular with the Asian tourists...

The Medicus demonstrating is skills

The knights in their best plumes

Quackery and amber

Modern Middle Ages

The basket maker

Leaf portraits - and some thoughts about blogging

I have have not posting very much here at the moment. It's not really because I don't want to, or because I'm tired of blogging. Well, I am a bit tired of the design of my blog, and I've been wanting to make some changes for absolutely ever, but that is another story.

I've come across some remarks here and there in the past few months, about more and more people questioning blogging and/or stopping to blog altogether. Personally, I think that's a shame and I don't have any intention of stopping myself, and I want to make some changing both in my own blogging as well as blog reading practice. I still think that blogs are the best way to show your work and all, in your own, personalised space. But maybe that's also because I don't like Facebook very much (especially as I don't seem to have much control over what I actually get to see, and I really dislike having some sort of algorithm make that decision for me). I do like Instagram, but I don't like to read longer posts on there. It's just too small on my phone.

I've been spending a lot of time with all kinds of drawing exercises in my sketchbook, and learning more about botanical art. It's fascinating - and a bit confusing - how much detail there is in a leaf, when you look closer! 

And that's why I haven't been blogging that much recently. Because there simply isn't much to show at the moment. It's just that not everything one draws, paints or sketches is really worth sharing. And I also think that it is important to keep some things for yourself. To do them just for fun, play, practice, without any intention of producing something post-worthy to be shared on social media. Process versus product.

There's so many things I want to do at the moment, and sometimes I feel that I'm not really getting anywhere. There never seems to be quite enough time. Especially as at the moment, I'm also working through 2 online classes, and a book. One of the classes I've been looking forward to for months, the other one came quite unexpected, as a free gift. But it turns out to be a very interesting class that could be just what I need right now, as is the book. But it does all take up a lot of time, and doesn't leave much left for painting. I'm trying to squeeze in more time for creativity during the week. Many people seem to opt for getting up an hour earlier in the morning and use that time to do something, be that drawing, reading, yoga etc.. But I already get up at 5.30, so that is definitely not an option for me. The TV is a big time waster for me, and I'm trying to switch it off more often in the evening and use that time for more rewarding things, and only watch things I actually really want to watch - like Springwatch at the moment. I love it!

The joy of layering graphite

I am exploring a style, or genre, that I have admired for a long time, but always felt too intimidated to really try myself - botanical art. I very much enjoy the loose and expressive styles of sketching and painting, but I actually also very much like to sit down and spend a few hours producing a (reasonably) precise and accurate drawing or painting.

I've worked through a course on Craftsy called Drawing Essentials: Inspired by Nature, taught by Kathleen McKeehan, this week, and it was just perfect. If you're interested in learning more about working this way, I can only recommend this course. It teaches you all the basics you need to get started: how to measure your subject, different transfer methods using tracing paper, how to light your subject, as well as different techniques for shading - using mainly an HB pencil, which, when putting several layers upon each other, can give you as dark a shade as a much darker pencil. With these three drawings, I was mainly interested in the shading techniques, so I just used the supplied photo references and drew them in my sketchbook without any measuring. I totally enjoyed sitting down for an hour or so and just put one layer of graphite over the other and seeing the subject emerge. These pencil drawings are also the perfect thing for me to do in the evenings, when I'm too tired to get the paints out. It's also rather relaxing, almost meditative.

The next steps will be working on actually seeing all those little details (this kind of drawing is also a very good exercise in observation), working from life, including all the measuring, as well as using watercolours, and maybe also coloured pencils - and of course lots and lots of practice. This course has also been the perfect preparation for a class I signed up for at the beginning of the year, and which is going to start soon. I can't wait to dive deeper into this fascinating way of drawing and painting!

A rosy palette of watercolours and a new drawing board

I've been thinking about getting this drawing board for a while, and when the artist materials shop had a 20% sales offer, I couldn't resist. It arrived last week. It's made of MDF, lovely light colour, and a good 50x70cm size.

I had to immediately try it out, of course. So on went a piece of watercolour paper, and out came the water colour paint boxes.

The Sketchbook Challenge's theme for February was "Close up" and this month, I wanted to participate in the challenge (after having had to give the doodles a miss last month). I found a photograph of pretty rose, a close up of the centre of a rose. Perfect for the theme and for the watercolours. A quick sketch of the subject, although not being bothered about copying it one hundred percent. For the rose, I wanted a rosy pink palette - the perfect opportunity to try out those fabulous pink paints I had bought a few weeks ago.

I started with a palette of Permanent rose, Magenta and the rather extravagant and very dramatic Opera rose.

As the rose was slowly developing, some more colours were needed for shading and especially for the deep shadows between the petals. I added some Madder lake deep, Permanent carmine, Quinacridone violet and Indigo (don't you just love Indigo? Such a gorgeous colour) to mix some deeper reds and purples.

I also used some Permanent Chinese white at the end, for some highlights, as I ended up with too many layers of paint, and almost none of the white paper shining through for natural highlights, as usual. I do love the light and transparent look of watercolour, but I always end up with far too much paint  and very little transparency on mine. The Chinese white didn't really work, of course. It looks great when applied, while it was still wet, but it is transparent, so once dry, there wasn't much left of it. So I used a white ink pen at the end, to add some highlights, which didn't really work too well either. Where the Chinese white is too transparent, the ink pen is a bit too opaque here.

It was good to take those watercolours out again. It's been a while. And it was also good to try and do some botanical painting again (something I want to do much more often), even though I'm not overly happy with the result. Still need a lot of practice with those watercolours. But I like my new drawing board :)

Linking this up with the wonderful and inspiring Paint Party Friday and Palette & Paint. 

Do have a look at the contributing artists there, it's simply fabulous and so rewarding.

The fascination of botanical illustration

Ever since I saw a programme about botanical illustration at Kew Gardens on telly a few years ago, and  a delightful exhibition of botanical art at the small but charming Museum of Garden History, or Garden Museum, as it is now called, in London shortly afterwards, I've been absolutely fascinated by this extraordinary art form. I think it's an art form that is often not really enough appreciated in it's own right. As with so many other forms of illustrations, they tend to be seen just  as accompaniments of the text in books and journals, without giving much thoughts about how and by whom they were done. But even today, in our modern digital megapixel world, a photograph, ultimately, can never be as accurate as a hand painted illustration, which is why all the good classification guide books still rely on painted illustrations rather than photographs. I find that quite extraordinary.

Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, colour, and details of plant species, frequently in watercolour paintings. These are often printed with a botanical description in book, magazines, and other media. The creation of these requires an understanding of plant anatomy, access to specimens and references, and are often composed in consultation with a scientific author. (Wikipedia).

Last year, I bought a book about botanical illustration, and then another one. I looked through them, admired the illustrations, studied the instructions, and put them into my book shelf. I was bad at drawing, and rubbish with watercolours. How could I ever dare to even attempt such an accomplished art, without even having the basic background skills? But two weeks ago, feeling so inspired by the autumn colours everywhere around, I took out my watercolours and sat down, trying to capture the colours, patterns, textures of some leaves, without much thinking about what I was doing. It wasn’t until a few days later that it occurred to me that, unconsciously, I had made my first attempt at botanical illustration. They are certainly not exact depictions of the leaves, and would be quite useless in a botanical book or journal, but painting them just made me so happy. And that's really good enough for me :)

Enjoying the autumn morning light flooding the room – and a cup of Earl Grey tea.

I had to run out in between, to take pictures of the flaming red tree in my street – and to collect some of its leaves – which of course I intend to paint as well.

And the final result:

I definitely want to learn more about the techniques of botanical illustration, and practise more, and maybe  find a course to take - maybe even at Kew Gardens? :)

In the meantime, I found some video tutorials on Youbute, like this wet technique autumn leaf  one – definitely have to try this!