Drawing a sycamore ball - 3

Today I spent time working with the lights and darks of the sycamore ball.  In reality, the whole seed pod is basically the same shade of medium brown.  But if I drew it all over with the same intensity of pencil, it would end up looking like a flat blob.  How do you make it look round and sitting firmly on the table?  The answer to this dilemma is to draw the gradations of high light areas and low light areas; the highlights are lighter and the shadows darker.  This is pretty straightforward, right?  As I draw, I'm constantly thinking of the light source, how it hits the seed pod.  Fortunately for me, the pod has texture to it, not at all smooth, and so there is very little reflected light to worry about.  So here's how it looks, nearly finished:

I will leave it like this and move on to the other parts of the composition.  When everything is done, I'll look at the whole thing and make sure the balance is right.  So next up: another sycamore ball tucked behind a leaf... Stay tuned!

Drawing a sycamore ball - 2

Well I've been staring intensely at my sycamore ball so long I need to take a break.  Hooray for blogging!  I've gotten the form down -- every little casing and spike and cavity is drawn in.  I draw what I see, not what I think I see.  This involves really looking at the subject, then down to the paper to draw just what I saw, then eyes back on the subject again.  Lots of looking back and forth.  The trick is not to get lost . . . "Where was I? What was I just drawing?"  This happens when drawing the many petals of a flower, or in this case, the many spikes of the seed pod.  Anyway, I finally captured it all.  Whew!



You can see that there is some dark shading in some areas, but not in others.  It is uneven.  That is because I mostly was concerned about getting the form right.  I wasn't really paying attention to relative darks and lights.  I will go back and work on these light values next.  My light source is above and to the left, so I have to make sure all the shadows reflect that.  And to make the sycamore ball look round, I've got to darken the outer edges and create areas of highlight.  I'll leave that for tomorrow!

Drawing a sycamore ball

In my opinion, there are few things in nature as difficult to draw as a sycamore seed pod.  I've spent the better part of the morning staring at the thing and finally I think I've figured out how it is constructed; and therefore now I know how I'm going to draw it.  Let me see if I can describe it to you:  What you've got is essentially a sphere within a sphere.  The inner sphere is almost like a soccer ball.  Can you imagine the hexagon patches of a soccer ball all sewn together?  Well in a sycamore ball, each 'patch' is actually a hole in which a seed case grows.  The seed grows and matures in there, and when it has swollen to its finished size, the casing pops open to let the seed out.  What you're left with is the bird-beak-like case poking out of the 'soccer ball patch' inner core.  All together, the open seed cases poke out all around the inner core to create the outer prickly sphere of the sycamore seed pod. 

Here I've started to sketch in inner core, with its irregularly shaped hexagons:

And here is what it looks like as I start to draw in the 'bird beaks':



I know this is a hard thing to draw because I am sighing a lot as I work.  This is dangerous, though, because as I have already mentioned, the material is extremely lightweight and if I sigh too heavily I'll destroy my composition (again.)  Ah well, this is a good exercise in perseverence.  See what good life lessons one can learn from picking up a drawing pencil?  Back to work . . .

Sycamore Situation

I know you probably think I've been goofing off the past few days and not drawing.  But you are wrong!  I have started to tackle a complicated drawing of a sycamore leaf and two seed pods.  I love sycamore trees.  The flaky multi-colored bark, the huge and graceful leaves, and most of all the seed pods, bouncy spiked balls that litter the ground beneath the tree each fall.  A couple of months ago, when I was working on the leaf-a-day project, I found this one leaf that was just too beautiful to paint quickly.  I set it aside, along with a handful of balls.  I think it would make a lovely graphite study and so I've been spending the last couple of days playing around with the composition, and doing quick sketches to get the feel of it.  Here's the composition I ended up with:

To do a formal botanical drawing one prepares much the same way as for a formal botanical painting.  Remember how I started out with the oak leaf?  First sketches, then a finished sketch, then transferring the image on to good paper, then checking all the lines to make sure the composition is right, and THEN, finally, beginning to do the finished work.  So, I've just transferred the sycamore image on to the nice paper. 

But as I was moving the nice paper back to the drawing table . . . disaster struck!  I accidentally knocked the arm of my drawing lamp, which swung around and hit the edge of the leaf.  The leaf, which is completely dry and weighs nothing, skittered around and knocked the sycamore balls.  I essentially blew up my composition!  Sigh.... Thankfully, I have this really good sketch which shows me exactly what was sitting where.  It will be like putting together a 3-D puzzle, but I think I can get it back to the way it looks on my paper.  Ah, the hazards of botanical illustration . . . Once I put it back together, I'll start the final drawing.  Stay tuned!

Silver Thaw

Honestly, we've had the wimpiest winter this year!  No snow.  No frigid temperatures.  Not even any "wintry mix".  But this morning we awoke to one of my favorite winter phenomena: a silver thaw.  Peter and I set off on a walk through the neighborhood.  It was early, so we had the forest of frozen trees all to ourselves.  Every branch of every tree and shrub was covered from limb to leaf in ice.  As if dipped in glass!  And nothing was stirring to break the magic spell.  Only the sound of our breathing and the drip drip drip as the spectacle melted in the warmer morning air. 

If you ever have a silver thaw where you live, I encourage you to go outside and really experience it!  See how the ice transforms otherwise anonymous trees into splendid, shining, fragile things.  The white iridescence around every single branch makes a sea of lace almost too much for the eye to behold.  Today is overcast, but when the sun shines on a silver thaw, the light show is spectacular. Peter challenged me to try to paint an ice-dipped leaf, but this might be one of those wonders of nature that an artist just can't capture.  Maybe I'll give it a try, though!

Here are some images from our walk.  Enjoy!

Winter dogwood branch - 4

Now I'm going to let you in on another drawing board secret.  Have you ever noticed when you look at something - I mean really stare at it - whatever is in the background behind the thing you are looking at is blurry? Your eyes can't focus on all the details everywhere all at once.  You can only see the sharp details of the thing you are looking at.  So as an artist, I can tweak my image to help the viewer understand what is the focal point using this principle.  It is called an 'atmospheric fade'.  I try not to overuse this technique, because can exaggerate the depth of field too much and the image becomes unrealistic (not good in botanic illustration!).  But sometimes it is useful to help put things in their proper perspective in space.  So in my branch, take a look at the little stem furthest back:

Well, the photo isn't great, of course, but I drew that little stem with every bit as much detail as the rest of the branch.  But there's going to be a problem making that next little stem down the branch appear in front of the other.  So, I took my kneeded eraser and went over this whole area carefully to remove some of the graphite.  What this does is make it look just a bit fuzzier and lighter than the rest of the image, so your brain with think, "Aha! That little stem is behind all the others!" and the picture will make sense.  See if you can tell the difference:

What this does is force you to look at other parts of the image more closely.  The fuzzy, light stuff in the back will 'fade into the atmosphere', much as it does in true life.  OK now look at the whole finished drawing and see you like the overall effect:

Winter dogwood branch - 3

The silvery branch is growing steady but sure on my paper.  I am nearing the home stretch!  I'm a bit disappointed with the quality of the photos that I'm taking of this drawing.  There must be a trick to capturing the subtleties of graphite in a photograph, but I don't know it.  Ah well, you will just have to imagine the steely gray bark, as smooth as you might expect on a young branch.  There are shiny dark brown patches in places, as layers of new bark grow over the old.  Scuffs and cracks and broken off stems reveal the harsh reality of living out in Nature. And the giveaway clue for tree identification -- those beautiful fuzzy gray buds at every tip, waiting.  Right now the branch is floating on the paper, but the next time you see it, I will have grounded it with a cast shaddow.  Until then, enjoy!

Winter dogwood branch - 2

Progress report: back at the drawing table after several very busy days doing family stuff, I'm settling in to a rhythm working on my branch.  The silver tones are soothing and subtle, and somehow all the administrivia bouncing around my head like popcorn just fades away.  I love it when that happens!  You can't really see all this bliss happening on the paper -- my photography skills can't capture it.  But I hope you enjoy seeing this update anyway!

Winter dogwood branch - 1

Today I am setting out to draw a dogwood branch.  This is a terrific candidate for a pencil drawing as it is completely grey with the exception of a slight rosy tint in the buds.  I'm intrigued with the graceful lines and those beautiful, fat buds which sit like tiny little puffs of meringue at the end of each stem.

This photo doesn't do much justice to the branch itself or to my initial sketch, which you can barely make out in the foreground.  But I wanted you to see what I'm seeing.  The first step is to faintly sketch the form on the paper, making sure the proportions and angles are all accurate.  This took me about an hour.  Now I'm ready to go back in and begin shading.  Stay tuned! 

The eyes have it

Happy New Year!  Hooray it's only January 3rd and I'm back at the drawing table!  Today I'm beginning a series of graphite drawings for your viewing pleasure.  January to me is cold and bleak and the colors come in shades of grey.  So why not spend some serious time with grey and see what we come up with?  I do love drawing with pencil -- you can achieve an infinite range of nuance and subtlety going from silvery white to practically black .  I promise by the end of this little exercise, you are going to love the color grey, and perhaps January won't seem so bleak after all!



So why eyes?  Not exactly botanical!  Well, these are my eyes, and I'm rather fond of them.  Yesterday, sweet daughter Katie gave me an eye makeover, which required us to take a hard look at my face for an extended period of time.  I don't stare at my face often (hence the need for the makeover) and I was reminded what a beautiful thing eyes are. 

I remember drawing my eyes years ago when I was back in school.  Today, staring into my little mirror, I found those same eyes residing in an older, wiser face.  The CoverGirl look is long gone, as little lines and wrinkles establish themselves.  (These eyes have seen a thing or two!)  It is way more fun drawing older eyes, I must admit.  There's more character to them, and I can blame all the imperfections and asymmetry on age, not my pencil!

In portrait work, it is the eyes that nail it, if you ask me.  Capture the eyes and you've got the person.  I think I came pretty close in this sketch . . .  I have to say it was disconcerting to look down at the paper and see me staring back! 

I'm organizing a new schedule for myself here in the new year (aren't we all?), which should result in more frequent blog entries.  Check back often, and see what I'm up to!
Enjoy, and best wishes for an abundance of good things in 2012!