Flame azalea - 5

More of the same today, finishing the tonal drawing of the azalea composition.  Here's how it turned out:



One tricky thing I encountered was the lighting.  As you may recall, this subject is a composite of several actual blossoming stems that I put together on one imaginary branch.  It is botanically accurate and if I hunted around in my azalea bushes, I just might have found a branch just like this.  One thing I have to be sure to do to make it real and convincing is to make the light source consistent across all parts of the branch.  We have only one sun, after all.  In botanical work, by convention we paint the light source from above and over the left shoulder of the artist.  My source photos aren't this way at all, since these blossoms were on three different sides of the shrub, and therefore the shaddows are cast in different directions.  So as I drew them, I had to alter the shaddows to make it read the right way.  You can't really tell from this poor quality scan, but you might be able to notice that there is a lighter side and a darker side to the blossom clusters.  In the end, I hope it will look like I set up my easel and painted this branch at about 10:00 in the morning on a sunny day.  When you see this painting, I want you to be able to imagine the blue sky above, a gentle breeze setting the graceful flower stamens in motion, birds chirping all around.  Spring.

Flame azalea - 4

The next step is to do a tonal drawing to help me see the composition on paper.  What is petal, leaf and stem and what is negative space.  How all the petals turn and fold in the blossoms.  Can you imagine six or seven or eight girls with twirly tango skirts all twirling together and their skirts all overlapping, what that might look like?  That is basically what we are dealing with.  Azalea blossoms doing the flamenco.  So it helps a little to make a drawing that shows what is flower and what is not.  It isn't that pretty because it is all shades of gray; but that isn't the point.  The point is, this will help me make a convincing, accurate, beautiful painting!

So here is the tonal drawing so far:

The scan is lousy because it is a pencil drawing.  But maybe you can get the gist.  Enjoy!

Back to the Drawing Board

I know this expression says a lot.  Something doesn't work the way you thought it would?  Something doesn't go the way you planned?  Something unexpected happens?  It's back to the drawing board to try again.  For me and my art, I take this expression literally.  I have two places to work in my studio:  at my desk and at my drawing board table.  When I am at the beginning of a complex project, I spend time at my desk doing research and studying photos on my computer, and I doodle at the drawing board.  I bounce back and forth from table to desk as an idea is tested, tweaked, and discarded when a better idea emerges.  It is an essential stage because this is when I start to fully understand the nature of the thing I'm working on. How it grows. What is its character.  I go back to the drawing board again and again until eventually something clicks.  I've got a drawing in my mind that starts to work on paper.  I don't mind getting to a dead end and having to start over, because I am learning all the while.  And I know my end result will be better for all the trials it took to get there.  Sometimes I wish I could be this persevering in other aspects of my life, helping me overcome other barriers, real or imagined.  Ah well, at least in this arena I know what works.  I have to go back to go forward. 

Flame Azalea composition

OK so life got in the way of my Plan to Paint.  A strange wind storm two weeks ago left us without power for a week!  Then it took me a week to get things put back together (including myself).  For some reason that whole episode wiped me out and I had zero energy or inspiration to do anything creative.  Until today!

I know this doesn't look like much, but it represents two hours of work.  I'm trying to construct an interesting composition of the beautiful flame azalea just coming into bloom.  Of course, now in July, the flame azalea is just another bland green shrub, blending in with everything else.  But when it first comes in to flower, it is a real show stopper.  I've got lots of pictures and some sketches from back in May and June.  So today I am sketching branches and understanding how the shrub grows.  This way, I can create a branch from my photos and sketches that will be botanically accurate, even though it doesn't actually exist.  It sounds sort of sneaky, but it isn't.  It is art! As I've said before, it is in the composition that the botanical artist finds a channel for creative expression. 

I think now I've worked out in my head how I'd like to portray this specimen.  Let's see if I can get it to work on paper!