My favorite oak tree quote

There are two ways of getting to the top of an oak tree . . .
one is to climb,
the other is to sit on an acorn
and wait.

Haycorns

My kids, when they were small, called acorns 'haycorns' thanks to Winnie the Pooh, which I thought was delightful.  I keep this in mind as I begin to paint them.  When looking at the Whole Painting, and wondering where to start, I find the best approach is to begin painting the thing that is the most difficult or important.  Just get it done so it isn't hanging over me in a worrying sort of way.  Since the acorns in this painting are really the focal point, and also quite tricky, I'll begin here.  I won't paint them completely, just the basic form and shape and the first few layers of color.  Just enough to squelch the fear that I can't do it, but not too much to affect the balance of the painting.  It is important to try to build the whole painting in stages, rather than finish every little square inch as you go along.  I'll talk more about this later.  For now, enjoy the haycorns, as they take shape on the paper!

Moving right along . . .

I just finished the tea wash stage and thought you'd like to take a peek.  Tough to make out everything, but that is the point.  It is just enough pigment so I can tell what is 'leaf' and what is 'not leaf' as I go back in to paint the form of my subject. 

Happy Father's Day!!

This one's for my dad, who loves his trees.  There's an enormous Magnolia Grandifolia just next to their house which is now flowering.  Big, soft, creamy white blossoms against that sharp, shiny dark green.  The flower blooms so fleetingly - just for a day - and gives off such a heady perfume.  I wanted to capture the moment before it had passed.   Take notice before it is gone.  Enjoy!

The Tea Wash

The first year I studied botanical art I took a class from Anne Marie Evans, a famous Brittish artist and pioneer in the field of botanical art education.  She developed a 5-step method for botanical watercolor painting,  which I still follow, more or less.  The first stage is called the Tea Stage.  You carefully eliminate your guidelines and lay down a very faint wash of color blocking out the entire composition.  The color you choose is taken from the lightest hue in the object you are painting.  But you dilute the paint in so much water that the result looks as if you were painting with tea.  This is fun and fast and satisfying, a nice way to begin.  I'm using a lemon yellow wash on everything but the stem.  When I get there, I think I'll use Indian red.  So sorry you can't really make out much with this scan.  In real life it isn't this invisible, thankfully.  Stay tuned!  Very visible green is just around the corner!

Ready to paint

Although you can't see it, I now have a fully detailed sketch on my watercolor paper, and I am ready for the first layer of paint.  The pencil lines are so faint even I can hardly see them, but this is intentional.  They only serve as guides for the first wash of color.  And when I lay down that wash, I will first erase the lines completely, one teeny section at a time.  This is so that in the end, there will be no traces of the graphite, which is such an essential tool in getting it 'right' but would be a distraction in the finished painting. 

Onward!

Studio Tricks

When you looked at my finished drawing of the oak branch, done on tracing paper, did you wonder how I was going to reproduce that image with paint on watercolor paper?  Some artists can sit down with paintbrush in hand and set paint to paper without any guidelines.  I'm not that talented . . . I need all the references and clues and guidelines I can get!  I will now reveal to you my first nifty piece of Studio equipment . . . the light box.  What a great invention!!  I used to have to take my rough drawing, place it on a piece of carbon paper on top of the watercolor paper and 'draw' with a stylus to get a carbon image traced onto the good paper.  Aside from the mess factor, it was really difficult to see and keep track of what I had or had not drawn.  The light box changed everything.  First you tape down the drawing on the light box.  The good paper is placed over the rough drawing, and because it is backlit, the image shows through the paper.  I can easily and quickly and accurately draw the image very lightly on the good paper.  I use a very hard pencil to make a very faint line.  It is only a guide and will ultimately be erased.  But the guidelines are crucial for accuracy.  And accuracy is everything in botanical art!