Collard Greens

An upcoming optional exercise, "Seeing Form and Texture", calls for taking black and white photos to keep color from clouding the image. Here I scanned a collard leaf and applied a b/w adjustment in Photoshop. I'll use this for some experimental sketches. You see, the course requires a project piece and I thought I might try this with pen and ink and ink wash--two media I've not worked with.

Also, I recently joined NESBA and have the opportunity to submit a piece for the Boston Flower Show on the topic of a plant or vegetable that grows in New England. If this all works out and I feel good about it, I could use this piece all the way around. How's that for multitasking? :-)

There may be a challenge in keeping a fresh sample. These leaves seem to wilt slightly within an hour out of the fridge. I'll be working on this. Also going to visit a local flower shop for some of those little water bottles that I've seen on roses.

It's A Wrap

It's been a full week of English Ivy. It's done. How do I know? Well, I penciled in the core shadowing with a 4H and lightened the edges with a kneaded eraser. Dropped in some gentle shadows under most veining. Those were my intended wrap up tasks, I suppose...it's not always easy to know when a piece is done.

I didn't keep track closely but I think I put in about twenty-five hours on this piece. During this time, I began to pick up some comfort with my pencils and their sharpening. Same for using tracing paper with a cutout--that became important due to the size of this drawing.

I am still working on scanner settings. In fact, this image was from the camera. It's a reasonable approximation of the tones except I think the whites of my drawing are a bit lighter.

A bit of green, an introduction, and of course the ivy...

Not long ago I clipped an ornamental crabapple branch as a model and never got to it. But, I did drop it into a glass of water and look what happened! :-) If the blossoms come through, we'll get a peek at them right here. More later...

My botanical art course officially opens on Monday. This evening I placed my introduction out on the web site. As I promised that you will be following along with me as I work my way through, here I share with you my intro:

Hello everyone!

I'm John from Bridgewater, Massachusetts and truly excited to be here. But, it did take me a few weeks to finally join up. I came up with all kinds of excuses not to take this course, but all the time I really knew that I was nervous about putting myself on the line, about exposing my work as a true beginner.

I've been interested in botanical art for a couple of years and tried to jump in with watercolors. But without experience in drawing, light and shade, and perspective, I struggled and then gave it up. In December I picked up a pencil and drew a Bosc pear that actually looked like a pear! I was hooked! Since then I have been drawing every day, mostly with dried leaves, and having a wonderful time. I now feel like drawing is a part of my life and I hope to build my abilities. I must say that the pen and ink leaves me with a bit of trepidation but I'm ready to give it a go.

At fifty-six years old, I'm in that pre-retirement planning mode and the idea of delving deeply into botanical drawing and painting seems most inviting. I'm hoping that this course gives me a good push in the right directions towards that goal.

-- John

And lastly, here's a little bit of progress on the ivy. Soon I will need to balance out the tones and work out some selective shading. (As you can tell, I'm still working on the scans.)

p.s. The comments display misbehaved today, refusing to let go of a spam comment that I had earlier deleted. Not sure yet if it will return. Perhaps something new can take it's place... But, please, please, keep commenting! I love 'em! :-)

Closing In

I didn't have time to draw last night but I did just get in a few hours this evening, long enough to roughly block in all the veins. Now it's time to tighten things up.

I'm testing a couple of new settings regarding my scanned images:

• The scanner resolution was set to 300 dpi; it's now maxed to 1200.
• Worked with the gamma setting in Photoshop's Exposure adjustment after setting the white level.

More later as I research and play around with scanner and software.

Plugging away...

It's coming along, slow and sure. I'm trying various methods of altering tonal value with the scanner. This one came out not at all as expected. Testing to continue...

I think I'm getting a bit faster with the veining as my mind-muscle connections establish. Maybe a few more days?

An English Ivy Afterimage

Gulp. Did I really put in twelve hours yesterday? Is that why today I'm seeing afterimages? Everywhere I look, I see veining matrices. Oh my... :-)

English Ivy On An Icy Day

The storm should be moving out within a couple of hours. There's been lots of rain and little bits of snow and sleet, just enough to slush it up here. Earlier this morning the temps slipped to freeze up the crabapple branches.

I recently tuned my zoom telephoto autofocus and I'm noticing an improvement. Some Canon cameras have a micro adjust for individual lenses that allow for correcting front and back focus--that is, when the lens autofocuses slightly off true. I'm pleased with the new found crispness, even if this isn't my finest lens. (Click to enlarge and see the feather detail.)

I was up into the early morning hours with this piece...lots of experimentation on those small veins. Still not sure where I'm going here but it's awfully entertaining regardless. :-) I've been scanning my drawings exclusively so today's camera shot of the ivy drawing was surprisingly adequate. Some lighting issues to be addressed but not bad at all. I've been counseled by a professional photographer (thanks, Bob!) that these kind of shots in daylight shade will come out very nicely. This could be a useful alternative for when my canvas size exceeds my scanner bed and I don't feel like stitching together a bunch of scans in Photoshop.

English Ivy

I just started work on a cropped macro of English Ivy. You know, sometimes getting started can be the most difficult thing. Whether it's coming up with the subject that feels right or a matter of confidence or even simply overcoming inertia, getting to the initial layout can be a chore. Once I get over that hurdle, I can settle nicely into a kind of meditative involvement. It's just that darned getting started...

A Walnut and a Walk

Here's another little nut drawing. Or nutty little drawing. ;-) The warty texture was a bit difficult but still quite fun.

There's a bit of a thaw under way with daytime temps in the 40's, warm enough for me to get the itch for a walk about with the camera. While out, I gathered up dried specimens of ferns and Sweet Fern. And with today's addition of a nice little desk lamp, I have the makings for some interesting drawings.

Almond

A while back I pondered on the need to use basic geometric shapes to study shading and perspective. Since then I've wavered back and forth. At the moment, I think that nuts will do nicely. With almonds and walnuts in stock, I'm good for now; brazils and hazelnuts to probably follow. Additionally, I'll get really great practice drawing the innards of some cracked open nuts.

I think this is my first drawing making use of cast shadows on a supporting surface. I positioned the nut with the lighting to put together the shading effect I was looking for. I'm feeling the need more and more to set up a dedicated spot, one where I can easily play with lighting.

Supplies

The course asks for the student to try out various nibs. Dickblick supplies Hunt nibs and not Gillott, but I found a good source for both at John Neal Bookseller. I have Hunt 102 and Gillott 290 and 659 nibs on the way, along with the various penholders--it seems there are quite a few different sizes. I checked out some very cool looking holders but I'll refrain for now.

I easily became hopelessly intrigued at the John Neal site. Pages of books on calligraphy and illumination. Then the books on bookmaking. Wow... Wheels within wheels...

No more hemming and hawing, it's now time to pull back into the rhythm of daily drawings, as it's over a week until the course begins. Next up? Nuts! :-)

Book List

Last night I spent my time reviewing books that I will use in the course. Lucky me, I already own all the titles! :-)

This course is based on the first four chapters of Bente Starcke King's Beautiful Botanicals. As the book is rather hard to come by (I do have a copy!), the chapters are offered as pdfs downloadable from the Cornell site.

1. Basic Form and Perspective
2. Graphite Pencil
3. Pen and Ink
4. Ink Wash

It's because of the pen and ink work involved that I recently tried that out medium. I've discovered that the nibs are delicate--one has already seen its better days after a nosedive into the hardwood flooring. Yipes! :-)

There are supplemental books mentioned but not required:

• The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature by Cathy Johnson

• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

• How To Draw Plants by Keith West