Please also visit my other website at:
Art For Sale - Saint Michael Miniature Pen and Ink Drawings
including:
 |
Our Lady of Guadalupe, stippled ink on genuine sheep skin, a (finished) Work In Progress |
As war escalates around the world, please remember each day to pray for Peace.
including:
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, Inc.
The Society of Tempera Painters
Marians Of The Immaculate Conception
A Colored Pencil Botanical Drawing
A work in progress
Image details:
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Image size: 8 inches x 9 inches
| Stonehenge vellum-surface paper (100% rag, acid free) |
| Caran D'Ache Pablo colored pencils, Prismacolor Artist's Soft Lead pencils. Prismacolor Verithin pencils |
This is a drawing of the common dandelion. I love dandelions. Yes, they make the grass look "weedy", but when you get up close to one, there's a pretty yellow flower that just refuses to quit. :) This drawing is not yet a "true botanical" in one sense - I am not at this point illustrating all parts of the flower, seeds, etc. As my dandelions set seed I have the option to add those elements to the drawing. For now, I am drawing three leaves, an open flower and a bud. Although I am currently leaving off some flower or plant components, I plan the composition of the drawing so that these parts may be added later. Many drawings are completed this way, because it allows me to draw "from life" each stage of a plant's development when the plant is actually in that stage.
Step 1
The initial drawing ready to be transferred:
In the drawing above, you will notice how I made minor corrections in the leaves on the graphite side (the original drawing) prior to transferring the drawing to the final paper. The drawing above was done on canary tracing vellum. After I finished the graphite drawing, I rubbed the back of the paper with a yellow colored pencil. Graphite can also be used to rub the back, but graphite smudges very easily, and especially with yellow or light colored flowers and leaves, the graphite may be difficult to cover as the drawing develops. Yellow blends right in and is easier to work over. After rubbing yellow on the back of the drawing, I place it right-side-up over the final paper I am using and re-trace my original drawing. This leaves the yellow version of the drawing on the final paper.
Many botanical prints have an old-world look to them. In original drawings, many times that is because they are old drawings, or the style in previous days was to reflect a color palette of muted yellows and brownish greens. And of course, many prints are made from these original drawings and have that same color palette.
I prefer to draw what I actually see, and dandelions have very green leaves, and not a brownish green. Aesthetically there is something to be said for muted tones in old botanicals, but for my current drawings, I try to be as accurate as possible to the true colors of the plant.
Below is the drawing at 4 hours. I am using Caran D'Ache Pablo pencils at this point, laying in initial colors. There are four layers on the drawing at this time - one yellow base layer, and three green layers in varying degrees. I have started to show what will be the darker areas of the leaves. I set the contrast of the scan a little high so that the yellow lines might be seen.
Detail is below:
Individual pencil strokes can be seen, as well as the initial yellow lines from the drawing transfer. Colored pencil is much like watercolor or perhaps transparent egg tempera because layers can be applied thinly, keeping them transparent. Layering such as this builds great depth in a finished piece. Caran D'Ache pencils are slightly harder than Prismacolor Artist's Soft Lead pencils and are great for these initial layers.
In the scan below, I have started to go over the Caran D'Ache Pablo pencils with Prismacolor Artist's Soft Lead pencils. The right side of the leaf has Apple Green Prismacolor over the cooler-shade Pablo pencil greens. Prismacolors have slightly softer and wider leads, and pencil marks may be made less evidently, blending the colors together without using a blending pencil. Of course, the pencils I use are my own preferences in pencil lead width and hardness. The same effects can be made using any brand pencil, depending on the pressure used and how sharp the point is. I will now continue with both brands of pencils, using them depending on the color I need. All pencil strokes are done with a medium to light pressure at this point. I will be burnishing the elements of the drawing later on by using more intense pressure with the pencils.
Below is a scan of the drawing at 7 hours. I have completed some modeling of the shapes of the leaf on the third leaf to the right. I have added about 4 layers total, but some areas have more than others. Where needed, I have used Prismacolor Verithin pencils to make sure my original yellow-lined drawing (and the slight indentations tracing it left) are filled with with colors that match the leaf edge. I will continue to model the other leaves in the same way, but will leave final modeling of the leaves and details until after I have the flower and bud finished, in order to keep the darks and details balanced through the drawing.
Below is a scan of the drawing when the leaves have been filled in more or less consistently. Below that is a scan of the detail at this stage. You will notice that the basic colors are on the leaves, but not the final modeling or veins.
The detail scan below shows layers of pencil, and that the leaves have not yet been burnished.
While waiting for a dandelion flower to open (indoors, under a daylight lamp at night) I decided to work a little more on the leaves. The bud is almost complete. The leaves, however will need more work. Dandelion leaves are slightly bumpy but not patterned. In order to show this texture, I have started to add darkened areas to the leaf on the right. The dark spots would be the recessed area of a leaf, and I will also highlight a few areas that will be the raised part of a slight bump, but for the most part, the recessed areas will be enough to show texture.
The amount of detail in the bumps, I feel, is the artist's discretion. The purpose of a botanical is to correctly represent the plant and its identifying features, so that a real plant could be identified were it to be compared to botanical drawings. As such, as long as each feature is correctly depicted, the amount of additional detail after that point is up to the artist. I have seen extremely detailed drawings that look like photographs, and I have seen other drawings that have the suggestion of detail, both of which are technically correctly depicting a plant. For this demonstration I will be doing an effect somewhere in the middle of those two examples. I want enough detail for the plant to be realistic, but I don't know that I need it to look like a photograph.
The darkened areas or spots on the leaves will be burnished over in order to blend their effect into the leaf, making it look like a "whole" leaf and not a leaf with spots drawn on it.
Below is a scan of the drawing at 14 hours and below that, a detail of the same scan. I completed putting in random "spots" to show depressions in the leaves. I then went over each leaf entirely with two specific layers, using strong pressure and burnishing the drawing as I went. The first layer was Prismacolor Jasmine, and the second layer was Prismacolor Spring Green. Most of my pencil strokes prior to these two layers had been following the contours of the leaves. With the burnishing layers, however, I did the strokes horizontally across the leaf, allowing the pencil strokes to give a more coherent surface to each leaf.
In addition to the leave surfaces, I put in the flower, the shadowing from the flower stems, and the shadows underneath the flower and bud. The main mid-vein to this plant is slightly less conspicuous toward the leaf tip than I have depicted it. I could have made it thinner than it is, but for the purposes of illustrating plant structure, I felt it was appropriate to leave it as it is. The only thing left to do is the sub-veining on the leaves.
Sub-veining can be done two ways. The first way (and what I usually do) is to incorporate all the smaller veins into the initial drawing, and carefully tracing them as a component of the transfer drawing. Each vein mark leaves a slight indentation in the paper. This method is what I prefer but it is time consuming. A second method is to add the sub-veins at the end of the drawing using a Prismacolor Verithin pencil. By pressing hard while carefully drawing the veins, and using a very sharp point, the same indentations can be made as would have been in the first method. The first method is especially important if the veins are a light color and the leaves are a darker color. Doing the indentations first allows subsequent pencil layers to be put on the drawing without going into the crevices of the veins.
On the dandelion however, the sub-veins are green, and the second method of adding them at the end is fine to use.
Below is a detail scan of some of the sub-veins. The veins on the dandelion are somewhat random except for the larger leaf areas, where they have a distinctive pattern.
And here is the finished drawing:
Thank you for viewing this!