Hey Suzanne

That’s so odd, they were! Really peculiar. Thanks so much for pointing it out. Ive added them back in, fingers crossed therye the right ones in the right places.

Thanks again
Lizzie

Thanks Ineke. If the plant is common I’ll dig it up. I dont wash the roots, I brush off the soil and make sure its on a sheet of paper on the desk. initial clearing off of soil is (of course) done out of doors. I also reference other illustrations, especially form herbals and the greats in the past. This is especially useful where plants are rarer, or hard to find. there’s also the ethics of unrooting a plant which isn’t common as muck. bracken (here, anyway) is by far the most common fern species, so uprooting it is fine. But any plant which isn’t totally ubiquitious, then I’d have to be more circumspect. Great question!

Hi Sandra,

Thanks for the question. So I tend to draw direct in pencil onto the page that I’ll be doing watercolour on. Sometimes I do some “thumbnail” sketches first, sort of figuring out where leaves should go etc. These are very rough, literally circles and lines on a sheet of printer paper. I tend to only do these for complicated subjects, or things like landscapes involving lots of different plants and elements. Otherwise I just pick up a pencil and draw the plant. I made a film of me doing just that with a sycamore leaf: https://youtu.be/PEdQLevbBHE Once it’s drawn, then it sits on the page all ready to be coloured in. Ive got better at drawing straight onto the final sheet as they years have gone by, I know some people will piece together lots of sketches and push it through onto a final sheet of watercolour – I haven’t really got time for tht level of perfection as sometimes I need to get 3 or 4 illustrations done in a day (to hit deadlines). So going straight to the page then rubbing out the ;pencil lines later works fine. Thanks for the question! x

Thankyou!

Glad it was useful, and thanks for the comment!