Water-violet Hottonia palustris

The Water-violet is a native UK aquatic plant, also known as Featherfoil.  It features in the FSC’s Guide to Waterside Flowers, along with about 38 other botanical illustrations.  As with lots of aquatic species, the challenge is representing water and showing the differences between submerged leaves, and those above the water level (if any are).

This species has whorls of fine pinnisect leaves below the surface.  It bears a flowering spike of pretty mauve flowers and some of the leaves and stems are evergreen through the winter.

Drawing up the Water-violet

This sounds easier than it is.  Finding reference to show the way the leaves behave below water is tough.  I rely heavily on past illustrations and engravings, along with photos.  Unfortunately, the plant was not growing near me, and the seasons were against us.  In general, it’s easier to work from life.

I combine several sources to create a pencil drawing which shows the plant and its’ relation to the water level.  I always show emergence from water the same way, with concentric rings of blue paint, faded on the outer edge.  I include information on roots and stem as this is important.

Rough Water violet Hottonia palustris

Materials

This illustration is done on  Fluid 100 by Global Arts using Winsor and Newton watercolours and a Winsor and Newton Series 7 sable brush (size 1).  Paint colours used are Cobalt Blue and Cobalt Blue, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Lemon, Sap Green, Opera Rose, Intense Blue, Vandyke Brown and Winsor Violet.

Painting Water

The first step is to illustrate the water and the ripples around the emergent stem.  Using Intense blue, I paint in some concentric circles, swiftly softening their edges with clean water.

Using tissue or toilet paper, I blot the edges of the blue rings.  This is as much to dry the paint so that I can get on with the painting as for any artistic reason!

Next, I use a dilute blue to show the “horizon line” of the water.  I use the same colour to further soften the edges of the ripples.  Leave some white paper to show highlights on the water or the ripple effect won’t work.

Diluting the blue further, I put a very pale very wet wash over the edges of the horizon.  This softens the blues and makes the water look more natural.  I repeat the process for the ripples, and manage to leave some white there too.

Once the pale blues are dry, I add some very thin darker blue lines.  These sharpen the ripples and throw the white highlights into a more intense contrast.

Illustrating the plant: Stems and buds

I mix a pale green from Lemon Yellow, Sap Green, and a touch of Yellow Ochre.  If it looks too bright, add a tiny bit of Winsor Violet to knock the intensity back a little.  Using a dry brush technique, I outline the stem, buds, and calyxes.  The lines are thicker and heavier on the right hand side of the plant.  This tricks the eye into seeing that side as in the shadow, and correlates to the botanical illustration convention of having a light source coming from the top left hand corner.

Where the leaves overlap the stem I paint around them.  They are a bluer colour, and will be painted in later on.

Below is a close-up of the flowering spike showing how the outline on the right of the plant is heavier than that on the left.  You can also add colour below the attachment nodes of the flowers and calyx.

I carefully pick out the line of the stem below the ripples.  The aim is to suggest the stem is there behind the ripples, under the water.  Too strong of a line stops the illusion of ripples sitting on top of, or above the stem.  I dilute the green with clean water and add a wet top wash which gives body to the stem of the plant.

Adding the leaves of the Water-violet

Once the stem is fully dry, I mix a green for the leaves.  This is Cobalt Blue, Cerulean Blue, Winsor Violet, Cadmium Yellow Pale, and a little Vandyke Brown.  Carefully outlining each filament of each leaf, I plot in the whorls and fronds.  Hopefully our earlier work with the water will create the illusion of these being underwater.

As before, there is more weight on the right hand side of each leaf midrib.  Where the sections overlap I add a little more paint, suggesting a shadow cast by one leaf overlapping another.

Below is a close up that shows how simple this approach is.  The leaf is literally just outlined in green paint, slightly heavier on the right than on the left hand side.  Thin leaves are a welcome relief, they are much easier to illustrate than those with large, flat surfaces.

Once dry, I dilute the leaf green with water and paint this wash over the whole leaf.  I finish each brush stroke at a point that is a little darker in nature, in this case it’s at the tip of each filamentous leaf lobe.

Next I mix the diluted leaf green with the diluted stem green and when everything is dry, paint this over all the leaves.  This gives the suggestion of the mid ribs being slightly paler than the leaf blades.

Illustrating the Calyx and adding shadow to the stem

I use this same green mix on the calyx, the green whorl at the base of each flower.  First I plot in the central line of each calyx lobe.  Once dry I paint the far side, on the right, with a layer of the same colour.  Allowing this to dry before adding a second more dilute coat of the same green gives the impression of the right hand side of the plant being more shaded than the left hand side.  There’s a pattern emerging here!

At this point, finding myself dissatisfied with the saturation and hue of the leaves, I add a dilute bluer top wash.  This is Sap Green plus Cobalt Blue and plenty of clean water.

I use the same dilute blue-green to plot in the shadows cast on the stem by the pale pink flowers.  You can see this clearly in the next image down.

Illustrating the Water-violet flowers

Before starting work on the flowers it’s vital to have a clean brush and clean water.  It’s also a good excuse to make a cup of tea as I have to go to the kitchen anyway, to change the water, wash the palette of my paint box, and rinse my brush under the tap.

The first step is to mix the perfect delicate pink-violet.  This is Opera Rose plus a touch of Cerulean Blue.  And plenty of clean water,  Initially, I outline each petal and add a central vein.  Using a very light touch and the tip of the brush, I use parallel paint marks to add colour and depth to the flowers.  These are anchored on the outside edge of the petal.  This species has flowers with paler yellow centres, so weighting the petal colour outwards echoes the colouration found in nature.

The next picture gives an idea of the scale we are working at.  Each flower is smaller than a 1p coin, so a reliable watercolour brush with a sharp tip that isn’t about to spit paint all over the paper is paramount.

Adding detail to the Water-violet flowers

Once the pink petals are dry I add the yellow centre and the stamens. This is a mix of Lemon Yellow and Cadmium Yellow Pale.  Each flower has five stamens emerging from the corolla tube.  The Water-violet is a member of the Primulaceae family, and now the similarities between the flowering form of the Water violet and the Primrose are clear.

Adding Shadow

As all the elements of the illustration are complete, I add shadows.  I often use the same colour mix for these, Cobalt Blue and Winsor Violet.  Anywhere there is overlap, just add a touch of the shadow mix.  This helps disentangle the different parts of the illustration and it also makes it more visually satisfying.  I think a big part of how we see is differentiating between lights and darks, which explains why sharp shadows are so welcome.

Shadows are added to the flowers, too.  It’s the same mix, a blue-purple, but very much diluted.

Finshing

The last stage is to take a close look at the illustration and add any final darks to the areas in deepest shadow.  If there are mistakes and areas that need to be highlighted, I use white gouache and a careful brush point (the same Winsor and Newton brush as I use for the watercolour work).  Sometimes I erase the pencil lines, but this can damage the paper.  Increasingly I find leaving pencil lines in place helps keep an illustration clear, especially if there are very pale or white flowers.  (For more on painting white flowers check out my blog and Youtube film).

Conclusion

This plant is comparatively easy to illustrate, thanks to the thin segments of the leaves.  But my approach to painting all botanical subjects is similar. Outline, add a wash, pick out the shadows.  The toughest part is definitely representing ripples and an aquatic habit, and showing that the plant is emerging from the water.

One of the treats of my job is seeing my illustrations in context, and this one looks great alongside the other 41 species featured on the FSC’s Waterside flowers guide.  Unfortunately you’ll have to take my word for it as it doesn’t appear on the two pages of the guide featured on the FSC’s website!

Completed Water violet Hottonia palustris 

The post Water violet Step by Step appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

I love geraniums, and am especially fond of the variegated leaves some types have with their circles of cream, green, and red. I think a geranium like this one is my favourite house plants which shows leaf variegation.

Ninety percent of all wild geraniums come from South Africa, and they’re hardy plants (although frost can kill them). There are loads of different types available from garden centres, and those whose leaves are striped with white and red areas are called Zonal geraniums (or Pelargoniums).  However, it’s tricky to tell geraniums and pelargoniums apart, as this blog from NZ Stuff explains.

This step by step blog follows on from my blogs on pattern.

Geranium and pelaronium sketchbook study

When I was researching why some plants have warning colouration, I found that flower petals of these Zonal geraniums paralyze the Japanese beetle Popillia japonica, a common garden pest in the US.  They do this by by mimicking insect neurotransmitters.  Thinking back to my blog on stripes, perhaps our striped leaf is a form of warning colouration?

On with the illustration.  The plant used in this step by step is Geranium “Mrs. Pollock”.

Choosing and Drawing a leaf

When you choose your plant, make sure it’s one with plenty of leaves, and with distinct markings that you can illustrate.  It might help to take the leaf off the plant so you can examine it better.

First step is to draw up the leaf in pencil.  Begin by drawing a rough suggestion of the leaf shape, and use the leaf veins as guides.

Rough outline of Pelargonium leaf

Work into the line drawing, looking for the shapes of each leaf lobe, and for the wide teeth on the leaf edge.  Plot in the lines where the red anthocyanin pigment first appears, and where the green pigment area ends.  A quick sketch so you don’t lose track of what colours go where can be helpful, and can be rubbed out later.

Look closer at the veins and draw the side veins.  You’ll be leaving these as white for a while, so feel free to give them a touch of thickness by using two pencil lines instead of one if it helps.

Detailed pencil drawing of Pelargonium leaf

Variegation: Adding greens

Now mix up a soft green. Daniel Smith Spring green, Cobalt blue, and a touch of Naples yellow works well.  Using little brush marks and looking at the leaf, start painting in the darker areas of green.  Look for patterns in the way the shadows fall.  Having a good strong light helps with this, a daylight lamp behind the left shoulder works wonders.  There are deeper greens down where the radial veins meet, and on the right hand of the central vein.  It’s a bit darker on the underside of the branching veins.  Let the paint dry.

Deep greens are added to the leaf

Make a tint of your green by diluting it with clean water.  Lay this on top of the painting, making sure to leave the veins as thin unpainted areas.  Leave paler areas in the middle of each leaf section, but try to blend the green in with the little brush marks. Ideally, it’s an easy visual transition between the pale and darker green.  Don’t worry about your pencil lines, you can rub them out later.

Main greens are completed

Variegation: Adding Cream

Mix a pale yellow. Naples yellow plus a dash of Pale cadmium yellow is the right sort of thing.  Keeping it dilute, pick out the edges of the leaf and the same shadows cast by the veins as before.  This area of leaf isn’t white, despite having no green cholorphyll.  Background pigments like carotenoids and flavonoids give that creamy colour.  Again, be sure to leave the white of the paper for your highlights.

Cream margins are added

Blend these areas of cream into the rest of the leaf margin with a tint of your yellow mix.  Once that’s dry, mix up more of your pale yellow and paint it over the entire leaf, including the veins.  Let it dry.  Using light pencil, you can draw in outside edges of the red, if you’ve not already done so.  It’s easier to see what’s going on now there’s some colour down.

Geranium leaf plus pencil guide to red areas

Variegation: Adding reds

Time for the red anthocyanin pigments.  This is a tricky colour to mix; it’s somehow crimson and bright orange-red at the same time.

We also have to be incredibly careful not to allow the addition of the red on top of the green to make a muddy mess, so go carefully.  Try mixing Alizarin crimson, Opera rose, and Cadmium orange.  Keep experimenting with your mix til it matches the reds on the leaf.

Starting on the inside edge of the red pigments, use tiny outward-pointing brush strokes.  Before these fully dry, go over them with a slightly paler, wetter red.  Be super careful not to let the red get muddy. Pull this scarlet out over the variegated pale margin, making sure it’s paler than the crimson you first applied. Let this dry and very carefully outline the vein edges in red.  Your leaf may well look a bit rubbish at this stage, but don’t panic.

Geranium leaf plus reds

Variegation: Adding shadow

Mix up a darker green, perhaps by adding purple to your existing green mix.  Pop a watery tint on this on top of the whole green area, including over the red areas.  Be careful not to mix the red and the green.  Let it dry fully.

Using a green darkened with blue or purple, pick out your darkest areas of green leaf.  The base of the leaf and right hand side of the central vein are darker, and there are tiny darker areas by the other veins.

Look for darker regions at the creamy edge.  With a delicate touch, pick these out with a mix of your pale yellow and a dash of green.  Using this to clarify the leaf edges helps pull the illustration into focus.

Once it’s dry, use a soft eraser to rub out the pencil lines.  Some watercolour papers handle this better than others, you can be quite vigorous with Fluid 100 HP and not harm the painting.

Geranium leaf with shadows added

Conclusion

Illustrating different colours on one leaf is not impossible, and feels far more frightening than it turns out to be.  Variegated leaves are beautiful, and well worth further examination.  Once you’ve given this leaf a whirl, a whole load of new subjects become available, and many are houseplants that can be painted year round.  For more on leaf variegation, check out my blog.

The post Geranium Variegated Leaf Step by Step appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Materials

I always use the same materials.  Draw up the flower in pencil, using a Pentel P205 mechanical pencil.  My current favourite paper is Fluid 100 hot press watercolour paper, using Winsor and Newton watercolour paints, and a Winsor and Newton series 7 sable brush (size 1).  In this particular illustration, the colours I’ve used are:  Cadmium yellow, Winsor blue, Cadmium yellow light, Purple, Pthalo green, Ywellow ochre, Cobalt blue, Burnt sienna, Burnt umber, Cadmium orange, Opera pink, Purple lake, and Alizarin crimson.  However, I’m a bit chaotic with my paints; filling up the pans from tubes etc, and am never 100% what the names of the colours I’m using are!

Pencil drawing

I draw up the Great burnet, along with a close up of one flower.  For this, I use excellent online websites such as Wildlfower finder, Nature spot, and Kew’s Plants of the World site; along with my reference books.  These tend to include the New Flora of the British Isles by Stace, HarperCollins Guide to Wild flowers by David Streeter, the collected illustrations of Stella Ross-Craig, and Wild flowers of the British Isles by Streeter and Gerrard.

These resources are vital, especially when the flower I’m drawing isn’t in bloom.

The pencil illustration is done direct onto the watercolour paper and sent to the client for feedback.  Once alterations have been made and approved, I start painting.

Pencil drawing of the Great burnet plant

Step 1: Laying down detail onto the leaves – painting the first side of each leaflet

I start with the leaves, and this first layer gives a lot of information.  I look closely at all my reference, and search for patterns in the way the light falls on the foliage.  Traditionally in botanical illustration, your light comes from top left, so shadows follow this plan.  Once you’ve figured out how the shadows will fall, you can apply this to all the leaves.  Obviously, when I have the plant in front of me it’s far simpler, I just paint what I see.

The mix of colours for the Great burnet is Cadmium yellow, Winsor blue, Cadmium yellow light,  a touch of purple, and a dash of a blue-green, like Pthalo green.  the paint is mixed to the consistency of cream, so looks pretty solid when applied to the paper.

Colour mix for the details of the leaves

In general, if there are lots of dark mid-tones on the left of the central vein of a leaf, you can reproduce this across the plant, flipping sides if you have leaves on both sides of a central axis.  In truth, these are leaflets, paired and opposite on a central stem.  To make the pattern clearer, I initially added the leaf veins, mid-tones, and details to only one side of each leaflet.

Working into the darks on one side of the mid-rib

In the photo below, you can see how one side of every leaflet has been treated in the same way.  The unpaired terminal leaflets need care as they’re not quite the same.  Looking at a similar terminal leaflet for inspiration (I referred to a fallen Rowan leaf) can help untangle your lights and darks.

One side of each leaflet is painted

Step 2: Paint the other side of each leaflet

Using exactly the same paint mix, I plot in the detail on the other side of each leaflet.

If the darks are heavy toward the central vein of a leaf, there’s likely to be less shadow on the other side, with darks seen more towards the leaf edge.  This relates to the physical structure of a leaf.  The reason for a shadow is because something (in this case some of the leaf blade) is casting a shadow.  It’s unusual for both sides of a leaf to bulge up toward the central vein, normally one will hit the light whilst the other sits in its shadow.

You can reduce this to a repeatable pattern.  Again, it’s always better to work from live material if you can, because these regular patterns, even when closely based on reference phtos, aren’t true to nature’s individuality.

Detail with both sides of the leaflets painted in

Once you’ve completed this step, you can see the skeleton of your leaves on the page.  There’s even a visual suggestion of whether or not the final illustration will look realistic, in terms of the balance of lights and darks.

Completed plant with the details of all leaflets plotted in

Detail of Completed leaflet details

Below is a detail showing how the pattern of darks flips on either side of the central leaf-stem.  To see it more clearly, look for where the darks cling to the mid-rib or ventral vein, and then note how that’s flipped in the other leaflet. This also shows the slightly different approach to the shadows falling on the terminal leaflet, basing darks down towards where the stem joins the leaf blade.

In all cases, I keep the central vein white.

In watercolour, your highlights and palest areas are the white of the paper, so you really need to keep these clear of paint in they;re going to be paler than the surrounding areas.  They’ll be knoced back under a colour wash at a later stage.

Detail of two leaflets and a terminal leaflet, plotted in

Sep 3: First top wash on the darker side of each leaflet

Once all the detailing is dry, I put the first wash on top of the painting.  This will only be applied to one side of the leaflets, the darker side.

The paint is the same mix as above, but with some more light yellow, and diluted with clean water.  With watercolour painting, you make a colour paler by diluting it with water, not be adding white.

Using the paint wetter than before, I paint over the whole of one side of the leaf, taking the paitn into the tips of the margin teeth, and allowing it to sit quite wet on the page.

Top wash number 1 – same green mix as before with water and more yellow added

Allowing the paint to dry from a wet puddle means the edges of the paint can give a crisp line which can be very beautiful.  It’s vital to allow the paint to fry fully though, before moving onto the next layer of colour wash.

Applying the top wash to one side of each leaflet

In the photo below you can see how wet the paint is on the page, and how the pigment is concentrated towards the edge of the leaf.  This effect remains once the paint is dry.

Close up of two leaves with wet top wash drying

Below, you can see the whole illustration as that first wash dries on the page.

Whole plant with first wash drying

Step 4: Second wash on leaves

Mix up a paler version of the colour above, using it as your base.  Add water, more yellow, a touch of yellow ochre.  This mix looks really quite watery as it’s quite pale and dilute.

This time, I put the wash on top of both sides of every leaflet; both the side which already has a layer of colour on it, and the other side.  yet again we’re leaving the mid rib veins as white paper.

Top wash mix two: Add water, yellow, and yellow ochre to the first wash

The effect here is that the side of the leaves which already have a dried layer of colour on now appear darker than the ones which have only just had their first layer.  The benefit is that because the colour has covered the entire leaflet, this difference looks natural rather than clunky.

Detail of one leaf with second colour wash drying

When you see this applied to all the leaves on the plant, it doesn’t look too dramatic at all, quite naturalistic.  But that distinction between lighter and darker sided of the leaf remains.

Whole plant with second colour wash drying

As before, it’s crucial to allow the wash to dry completely before continuing to work into the painting.  You can hurry things along if you like, by using a fan heater or a hairdryer.

Step 5: Picking out the darks

I pick out the darkest bits of each leaf with the tip pf my brush, and some judicious decision making.  Don’t add too much dark, or the plant changes colour.  Too little dark, and the leaves look flat.  You want something in between, where the deepest shadows are picked out, but the leaves remain that same hue of green.

The colour we mix here is the same consistency as our first colour, something close to cream.  Colours for this mix are Cobalt blue, purple, and a Pthalo green. It looks less stark when laid on top of the green of the leaves, but I’ll use the same shade to pic out the darkest areas of the flowers and the stem, too.

Mix for the darks: Cobalt blue, Pthalo green (or a blueish green) and purple.

The darkest areas tend to be at the tips of the leaflet teeth, and close to the central margin.  You also need to pop darks where one leaf casts a shadow on top of the one below, and where a leaf curls back on itself.

Working into the darks near the centre of the leaf rosette

In the photo below you can see that the marks made with the dark paint are the same as those initial ones made with the first green.  They’re tiny individual brush marks, following the line of growth.  And they’re certainly not covering the whole of the leaf blade.  Be juducious with these darks or everything gets muddy.

Detail of leaves once the darkest darks have been picked out

Step 6: Stems

Let the leaves dry so you don’t end up resting a hand on wet paint and smudging it.

Now I mix up the colour for the stems.  This is still based on that initial green, but by now it’s become much paler and much more watery. Add lots of yellow to the second top wash, until you get a very yellowish bright green.

Using a steady hand and the tip of the brush, I follow the lines of the stem.  I press slightly harder on the right hand side of the stem, this leaves a marginally thicker line, which registers as a slightly darker edge.

Stem colour mix: All those greens from before (Cadmium yellow, Winsor blue, Cadmium yellow light, Yellow ochre, purple, Pthalo green, extra yellow and LOTS of water)

Let these two lines sit for about 60 seconds; long enough to stain the page but not so long that they’re totally immobile on the paper.  Then I use a more watery version of the stem colour, and with one brush stroke, paint on top.  An extra blob of stem colour at the base and below leaves gives the suggestion of shadow.  Allow to dry

If the stem is ridged, as it is here, be sure to put in an extra line to show the angle.  Once the top layer is dry, you cna add a second layer of colour to show that the stem has a facet which is turned away form us, and which is marginally darker as a result.

Painting the stems and handling the angled, cut stem

Step 7: Outlining the flowers

This mix was a challenge.  The flowers are a really unusual dark brownish red, and I would have loved to have a few actual specimens to look at.  However, I was limited to the colours on engravings and in photos.

This mix, created in a different part of the paint-box to your greens, has that same cream-like consistency.  It’s a mix of Purple, Cadmium orange dark, a pink red like Alizarin crimson, and a warm purple (like purple lake).

Colour of the flowers: Purple, orange, pinkish reds

Outline each flower with this colour, trying not to let the paint to get messy or run.  Once dry, add a bit of blue to your flower colour and paint in the square spaces between the individual florets.

I also put a suggestion of detail at the centre of each floret; just four little lines.  This is to help point the eye to the flower’s middle.

Having outlined each flower, plot in the spaces between them

As always, allow the paint to dry fully and completely.

Entire illustration with the flowering heads plotted in

Step 8: Add colour to the flowers

Each of these florets is tiny, so the challenge is to get some colour onto the flowers without losing detail and definition.  I admit I didn’t entirely succeed in this, I got tied up ith leaving white paper for the bright yellow anthers, and this compromised the colour of each flower.

The mix for the body of each petal is as before; purples, oranges, pinky-reds.  But with an added dash of red, and a touch of a bright pink like Opera rose.

Colour mix for the flower body: As for the outlines of the flowers, but with more red and some bright pink like Opera rose

I focus this colour towards the centre of each floret, and where one overlaps another.  Keep the colour fairly light.  The whites of the page here help the eye distinguish between the different florets, so we need to be sure it doesn’t all get swallowed up in reds.

Working into the petal colour

Let the paint dry fully.

Step 9: Add a Pink top wash to the flowers

Dilute your reddish colour with water and add a dash of a bright pink.  Keeping the paint very dilute and watery, lay it over the best part of the flowers youve painted, leaving the occassional bit of white, and the spaces where the golden anthers are going to sit white.

Great burnet flowering head with top wash of pink applied

Let this pale wash dry before the next step, adding the golden anthers.

Top colour for the flowers: That same pink body colour, but diluted with lots of water and with a bit of pink added

Step 10: Finish the flowers, then finish the painting

Using a golden colour from your paint-box, unmixed, like a Cadmium yellow dark, just paint a little circle where each anther should be.  Once dry, use a slightly dilute brighter and paler yellow, and pop a dot on top.  Allow to dry.

I left the pencil lines to suggest the stamen filaments; you could go over these with a pale grey or a pale blue if you prefer.

Adding the anthers

The next step is to plot in the woody stem and roots with a reddish brown mixed from Burnt Sienna, reds, and Burnt umber.

Final touches are knocking back those leaf midribs with a watery yellow green, and looking for more darks.  Anywhere that needs crisping up, giving dark edges, adding depth of shadow…pop some of that blue and purple mix on.

Completed illustration with paints and references

I colour up the individual flower details, using the same mixes as were used for the main illustration.

And there you have it…finished!

This approach can be used for illustrating most wild flowers, so long as you have decent reference materials.  The outline, adding darks, adding layers of top wash, then picking out the deepest darks.  But, like I always say, if you can get your hands on living specimens, you’ll be making life a whole lot easier for yourself!

Completed Great Burnet illustration

The post Great Burnet Step by Step appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

If you’ve come from the youtube film and just want a printable PDF to work with, please scroll to the bottom of the page)

Learning about Orchids

I decided this was the perfect time to try and learn a bit about orchid flowers, so I could stop being scared of them.  Consulting Common Families of Flowering Plants by Hickey & King, Understanding the Flowering Plants by Bebbington, and The Cambridge Illustrated Glossary of Botanical Terms by Hickey & King I pieced together a diagram.  I drew it up and labelled it, and will use it anytime I’m asked to illustrate and orchid.

The take home message is that the whole orchid flower is twisted upside down.  Yes, I know.  But if you look at its’ pedicel (where the inferior ovary is) you can even see the twisted striations.  Why?  So that the large, flat Labellum petal can act as a broad landing mat for pollinators.  Different types twist in different ways.   Our Marsh orchid has managed a Resupinate twist, basically a 180 degree flip.

The Labellum, or base petal, often has a spur growing back from it.  There are two wing petals, in the case of my Early Marsh orchid these are help up above the flower, like hands flung up in an act of surrender.  Then there’s the Outer perianth and inner perianth(also referred to as the Median and lateral sepal).  Inside these are the paired Polliniums.

Diagram of a Pollinia and within an orchid flower

Orchid Reproduction

Orchids don’t always need insect pollinators and some can self-fertilize, but when they do want pollinating they are incredibly clever.  Some mimic female insects to lure lust-filled males to them, then glue the pollinium to them.  Others, like the Fragrant orchid, will glue the pollinium to the tongue of a feeding butterfly, perfectly positioning it to fertilize the sticky stigmatic area on the next orchid it visits. Pollinium get attached to legs, eyes, backs…and carried onto the next orchid where fertilization occurs.

Orchid bee Euglossa cybelia with Cycnoches guttulatum orchid

Pencil roughs and alterations

The first pencil rough needed tweaking as the plant was too tall.  This involved ditching a pair of leaves and re-drawing the bottom of the stem and the orchid bulb (pseudo bulb).  Getting feedback from botanists is very welcome, it means I feel confident in the accuracy of my illustrations.

Pencil rough with feedback

Materials

I’m using Stonehenge Aqua hotpress watercolour paper, Winsor & Newton pans (topped up from tubes), and (incredibly for me) use the synthetic Princeton Neptune Round brush throughout.  (For more on this, please check out my blogs on Synthetic alternatives to the Winsor & Newton series 7 sable brushes)

Leaves

The leaves of this plant are described as a light, spring green, although they seem to vary a lot in the photos.  However, unlike the Spotted orchids (close relatives), they are entirely green.

Common spotted orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsii

Mixing Sap green, Cobalt blue, and Cadmium lemon, I start by outlining wach leaf then plotting in the longditudinal parallel veins. Once dry, I make a lighter tint of this green by adding lots of water, and a touch of Cerulean blue.  I paint this over all the leaves, then leave it to dry.

Another paler wash goes on top of this, and the difference between the underside and top of the leaf blade is suggested with a slight difference in colour (a little milkier and bluer below)

Once dry, I pick out the darks by mixing Sepia with Cobalt blue and a touch of Winsor Green (yellow hue).  Go easy, you really just want these dark areas to show definition, not to darken the leaves.

Roots

Each root is outlined in a brown made from Sepia, the green mixed for the leaf, and Yellow ochre.  The pseudobulbs and plotted in with a pale brown made from Yellow ochre and Naples yellow.

Whilst wet, I use tiny blobs of the darker root brown to add texture.  When the paint is dry, I suggest shadows with a mix of Sepia and Cobalt blue.

Stem

Using a dilute and yellowish tint of the greens, I paint in the stem, being sure to suggest the parallel veins and a slight shadow on the right hand side.  traditionally, the light source in botanical illustration comes from the top left, so shadows behave accordingly.

Flowers

There are between 10 and 70 flowers per inflorescence on this species of Orchid, so it’s worth pulling out one flower and paitning it in more detail.  I do this, and emphasize the twist in the column,  The colour is vital in this sub-species, being described as “bright red”, “brick red”, “scarlet”, “orange-infused red”, and “markedly redder than other orchids”.  Close and repeated consultation of all my reference gives it as something of a reddish maroon.  I make this hue from Alizarin crimson, Cadmium red, and Opera rose.

The other vital diagnostic in the Early Marsh Orchid is that the sides of the Labellum are inflexed, curled back on themselves.  This means the flower looks narrower than many similar orchids, and that the central keel of the labellum is raised, almost like the keel of a boat.  This proved excrutiatingly tricky to illustrate, although I tried my best.

Flowers vs Bracts

I feel a bit weak looking at that big inflorescence, it’s s hard to figure out what’s orchid and what’s bract, or flower column. First thing to do is separate them out.  So I paint in the bracts, thinking carefully all the time about what is and isn’t the flowering part.  I use the same yellowish green as on the stem – sap green, cobalt blue, cadmium yellow and a whole lot of water.  I add a touch of Daniel Smith Spring green watercolour.  Once outlined, I paint over the tips of the top bracts in Alizarin crimson, aware that the flowering heads look red all over and no areas of clear green are visible.

Then I in fill with a dilute version of the initial green hue.

Once dry, I add more red to the bracts.

Flowers: The Labellum

The literature suggests that the labellum is a deeper red than the upper petals and sepals. This means I add a tiny bit more Cadmium red and a touch of Permanent carmine to the red mix.  Although it doesn’t really succeed, I try to suggest the reflexing of the labellum edges as I paint.  I’m worried that the flowers all look too orchid-typical, and not oblong enough.

Flowers in their entirety

The other sepals and petals are outlined with a pinker colour.  This means adding more Opera pink, and water to the mix.

As always, colours are allowed to completely dry.

Now use tints of the red and of the pink to fill in the orchid flowers, leaving a white area at the centre of each flower.  A dab of yellow green at the top of these central areas is enough to suggest the complexities of the pollinium, and a pale area is left below this.

Next come the distinctive markings on the labellum, easily added sing Permanent magenta straight form the pan.

Now I need to knock the whole thing back, and make the inflorescence red and purple instead of green.  Everything gets covered with a tint of Alizarin crimson and Opera rose.  Once dry, there follows a very long period of adding darker shades of Alizarin crimson.   Then I pick out shadows with a mix of Cobalt blue and the magenta.  I also added a touch of the reds to the sheath area down by the pseudo-bulb.  This helps unite the image.

A few drop shadows made from Cobalt blue and Permanent magenta, and we’re done.

Conclusion

Knowing a little about the structure of orchids proved really helpful in this job.  Right after finishing, I spilled most of a jar of water on the illustration. I was amazed and delighted to find that, after very loud swearing and judicious application of clean loo roll, no damage had been done.

Early Marsh Orchid Dactylorhiza incarnata ssp coccinea

I’m glad to have completed this illustration.  I don’t think it’s my best orchid to date, but it passes muster.  Fingers crossed that the client thinks so too!

To see a film of me illustrating this orchid in real time, please see below.

Below is a pdf of the finished orchid illustration.  Feel free to print it off and trace (it’s for use as an art template only).

Early Marsh Orchid Dactylorhiza incarnata ssp coccinea

The post Orchid Botanical Illustration Step by step appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

This one of the Cow parsley,  Anthriscus sylvatica, was recently done for FOR in Sweden.  It accompanied a large sheet of sketches of the same plant.  To learn more about Cow parsley, and how to identify it, check out my blog.

There’s also a Youtube film that accompanies this blog; please find a link at the end of this blog, or click here to access it.

You’ll notice that this habit sketch is less accurate than many of my illustrations.  This goes with the territory.  There’s only so much detail you can cram into a 20cm tall illustration of an entire plant, and individual petals and leaf veins don’t get a look in.  However, if you want to show a whole plant, rather than one portion of it, then a habit sketch is the best way to do this.  Alternatively, you can use a much larger format and work on a plant portrait which will be more accurate and less impressionistic.

Completed habit sketch of the Cow parsley

Habit sketch:  Pencil rough

The first thing to do when confronted with a habit sketch is to learn as much as you can about the plant.  I gather lots of specimens, and consult various botany books.  these include A Flora of the British Isles by Clapham Tutin and Moore, The Wildflowers of the British Isles by Garrard and Streeter, the pen and ink drawings of Stella Ross-Craig, Collins Flower guide by David Streeter, and (in this case) the BSBI Handbook: Umbellifers of the British Isles.

Once the plant and botanical information is collated, I draw up a pencil rough that shows each important element to its best advantage.  I use mechanical Pentel P205 pencils with an H or HB 0.5mm lead.  I draw directly onto my watercolour paper, in this case hotpress Fluid 100 by Global Arts.

One of the reasons why I use Fluid 100 is because it’s quite good at allowing you to erase your pencil lines after you’ve painted on top of them.  Various papers will, or won’t be good for this.  The way I paint means that it’s important that a paper will give up the graphite but not the paint pigments once I’ve completed an illustration.

Cow parsley pencil rough (with basal rosette and stem details)

Are leaves alternate or opposite?  Are upper leaves noticeably different from lower ones?  is there a basal rosette of leaves?  How are the flowers carried on the stems?  What does the root do?  All this information needs to be given by the illustration.

Habit sketch: Leaves

Once the client has approved the roughs, you can start adding colour.  I begin with the leaves, outlining them in green.  Winsor and Newton are my favourite watercolours, and I use pans topped up with tube colours.  I mix sap green, some cobalt blue, and a bit of cadmium yellow light together.  I keep the paint quite thick and dry at this point.  Carefully, using my trusty Series 7 sable brush (size 1), I follow the pencil lines of the leaf edges.  This approach is the same as I use when painting ferns and bracken.

Outlining the leaves

I observe my plant carefully, and add some variation to the green hue.  The central leaf is a little paler and brighter green than the others – I add yellow to the mix and outline it with this new colour.

Different greens are used to outline the leaves

Habit sketch: Top washes on leaves

Once these initial lines are dry, I add water to the greens to make them lighter and more dilute.  Then, using the same brush, I pop blobs of this watery green onto the leaves.  I love the crisp edges watercolour gives if you allow very wet paint to dry, and this is the effect I’m after here.

Watery green top wash is applied very wet

Because of the midrib veins and the way the leaves are structured, you’ll often see one side of a leaflet is darker than the other.  This needs to be included in the habit sketch.  You can either do this by going over the darker, shaded side with two layers of top-wash; or you can use a different and brighter colour for the top-wash on the lighter side of the leaflet.

Putting the first wash onto only one side of each leaflet

In this case I’ve done both.  I added some yellow to the top-wash, and covered the entire leaflet with this mix.  (I’d made sure the first and darker wash was completely dry first.)  Allow the paint to dry completely.

Two different colours of top-wash used on the leaflets

Habit sketch: Painting the stems

I actively enjoy painting stems because it’s so easy.  Mix up the right colour (as always, check with the plants in front of you.  It’s so important to keep referring to the plants you’re illustrating if you want to get details such as form and colour right).  This is a sap green plus a little yellow ochre, perhaps a touch of blue, and plenty of a clear bright yellow such as Cadmium light.

Then just outline the stems, following the pencil lines.  You can apply a little more pressure to one side of the stem than to the other.  This helps suggest a light source, and shadow.  Traditionally in botanical illustration, the light source comes from the top left, so the heavier lines are to the right of each stem.

You can also add ridges, furrows, or textures with simple lines if that’s appropriate for the species you’re working with.  With Cow parsley, the stems are ridged, prominently so towards the base of the plant.

Outlining the stems

Once the illustration is completely dry, dilute the colour you used for the stems with plenty of water.  Then simply put this watery wash over your stems and allow it to dry.

Putting a watery top-wash onto the main stem

Habit sketch: Painting the flowers

With habit sketches, the precision and detail of each flower is compromised in an effort to represent the entire plant.  So there are no individual petals to portray, just the frothy mass of flowers that constitute each umbel (or flowering head).

Illustrating white flowers is really hard – you need to show their form without making them look like they’re another colour.  For more on this subject, check out my blog or my Youtube film.  In this case, the shadows cast by each umbel are going to be key, and will be what we use to represent some tonal depth.  As with the leaves and stems, out light source is from the top left; so the shadows will fall from the right hand side of each umbel.

To ensure the flowers look clean and white, I mix a light blue.  Cerulean blue is light and bright enough.  Dilute it to a very pale tone, then pick out the shadows with the tip of your brush.

Adding shadow to the flowers

I work from the top of the plant downwards.  this helps me avoid resting my hand in wet paint and smearing the illustration.  Series 7 brushes are expensive, but they justify their cost by holding their tips.  When you’re applying tiny amounts of pale paint to the nooks and crannies of an illustration, the accuracy you can get from your tools is really important.  For more on my choice of paintbrushes, click here.

Applying blue to show shadow in the central flowers

Habit sketch: The root

The root tends to be included in a habit sketch, specially if it’s an important diagnostic feature of the species.  Please note that it’s illegal to uproot flowers in the wild – I happen to have cow parsley growing in my Aunt’s garden, and she was happy for me to unearth a few plants to get at the roots.

Illustrating these tap roots couldn’t be easier. In exactly the same way as you tackled the stems, outline the root.  I mixed some Vandyke brown with yellow ochre.  Remember to pick out the texture and root hairs, too.  Once dry, dilute the mixed colour and pop the watery top wash over the whole root.  Done.

Putting a top-wash on the Cow parsley taproot

Habit sketch: Adding shadows

Now the illustration is more or less complete, it needs shadows to bring it to life.  I favour a mix of purple and cobalt blue, sometimes with a dash of Vandyke brown.  Using this, and being really careful not to go too dark too fast, I pick out the darkest shadows.

This is an important stage.  Judicious application of shadows can help clarify muddy or messy areas of a sketch.

Adding shadows to clarify a leaf’s structure

I always put shadows below each flowering head, and frequently pick out the tips of leaves to help the eye find the edges of the illustration.

Again, because the scale of the illustration shows an entire plant, you’ll find it hard to accurately represent the shadow details on each portion of each leaf.  This is one of the drawbacks of a habit sketch.  I often find myself trying to pull in more detail than is possible.  there has to be an element of “giving the impression” of a plant when it comes to habit sketches.  I’ll admit to struggling with this looseness at times.

Fixing mistakes

Inevitably, sometimes when we paint we make mistakes.  Quite often I’ll think that a stem I painted is too wide, or perhaps a top-wash has overflowed an edge.  There’s no need to despair.

Using white gouache to fix mistakes

I use Winsor and Newton white gouache, permanent white, to fix my mistakes.  I use it really thick, straight from the tube or mixed with a tiny amount of water.  It helps sharpen up messy edges, or will hide a mistake.  It should be noted that using this is fine for your own work and for work that’s going to be reproduced (it doesn’t show up on scans); however, if you plan on selling your original artwork then the use of white gouache is frowned on.

Conclusion

And that’s it!  The illustration is finished.

Last step is to erase the underlying pencil lines.  If you’ve got a good hot press paper, you should be able to do this without damaging any of the paint (no, I don’t understand why this works either).  I’d suggest going easy on the rubbing out around the flowers as the only marks suggesting them are the pale blue shadows and the pencil.  A tougher approach can be used on the stems and leaves and root.

Hopefully, this illustration immediately suggests an entire Cow parsley plant growing in the wild.  Habit sketches tend to accompany much more detailed botanical illustrations which help clarify exact structures of stem, root, leaf, fruits, and flowers.  I find them pretty hard to illustrate, but exceptionally useful when it comes to identifying wild flowers in the field.

And now, I hope, you’ll have some idea of how to go about creating your own illustration of an entire plant; your very own habit sketch.

Completed habit sketch of Cow parsley with paint box

To see a real-time film of me completing this illustration and discussing the process, please check out the film below.  Thanks.

The post Habit sketch of Cow parsley: step by step appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Drawing blueberries

Coming up with the initial drawing was tricky.  it had to fit the layout of the product’s box, and the commissioner wanted lots of berries; far more than one would normally see in nature.  Every time I submitted a pencil rough an email would ping back – “more fruit!”

Anyway, we finally came up with something that worked.  The next step was to make the berries look really juicy and delicious.

The illustration was done on a decent heavyweight cartridge paper, in this case Daler Rowney Smooth Heavyweight (220 gsm/135lb).  This paper (like many others) shows up slightly grey on scans, which I correct for at a later stage.  This explains why there’s a slight cast to some of the images in this blog.

Pencil rough of the blueberries (later rotated)

Showing shine

A good way to show the ripeness of fruit is to emphasize the shine on its surface.  Of course, when drawing on the page, this means making sure there’s plenty of white paper left to act as shine.  You also need to make sure there’s a good contrast between the dark of the fruit and this highlight.

Once you establish your light source, it’s worth plotting in lights and darks with a pencil line.  I tend to put a circle around the area of highlight, a little larger than I want the final shiny area to be.

Next you have a choice.  You can build up the dark areas of fruit with thousands of tiny ink dots in a process called stippling.  This looks amazing, but takes forever.  Or, you can take a short cut.

Short cut to dark fruit

I colour in big areas of the fruit, where I know the deepest shadows lie.  My permanent ink pen is used for this (I currently favour Unipin but any thin-nibbed pen with waterproof and fade proof ink will be fine).  Use a pen with an 0-5 nib as I want to block in large areas. The larger nib is faster, and also provides more consistent cover.

I outline each blueberry, then block in the darks as solid crescents of black ink.  I try to keep the edges a little scruffy as this will make the next step less time consuming.

Blueberry sprig with darks of the fruits plotted in

Blending the darks and the highlights

The next step is to make a natural transition between the dark areas and the highlights.  This is where the endless act of stippling kicks in.  Making lots of tiny dots to represent a tonal value.  What you’re after is a smooth transition from the solid black to the white.  As you encroach into the white, be sure the dots are further apart.

Be careful.  Stippling is cruel.  If you stop concentrating you may end up with dots on top of each other, in an area where you’re looking to represent a light tonal value.  This can look clunky.  In fact, you can see where this has happened in the illustration below.  The central berry has a dark spot on the bottom edge of the highlight.  This immediately draws the eye, and the whole edifice of pretending to represent light and dark with ink spots threatens to crumble.

You can see why the rough edges of the black areas are important.  They give a rugged margin that you can naturally build on, as you reach into the high-lit region of each fruit.

You may also want to soften the external edge line of each blueberry.  Do this by adding tiny dots along the inside edge of the line.

Illustration in progress showing the pen nib and the fruit which have vs those which have not been stippled.

Balancing the illustration

Once you’ve given each blueberry this treatment, take a step back.  You may find they’re all too light.  In which case, work back into the fruit, darkening the stippled areas and shrinking the regions of highlight.  Berries which are tucked behind foliage of other fruits will appear a little darker.  To draw the eye, you’ll probably want your central blueberry to have the most light on it.

Blueberries with completed berries

Finishing up and applying the technique to other subjects

Once the fruit are done, you can move onto the leaves, which are a little trickier.  These need to give information about the way light falls on the veins.  A youtube video I recently posted, discussing how I drew the leaves and catkins of the Downy Birch in pen and ink might be of use here.

Completed illustration of the Blueberry sprig

You can illustrate anything in pen and ink using this same technique – cherries, beetles, cows…..  The image below is a detail of the back of a cow.  I took the photo in the middle of illustrating the animal, to show the process.   Solid black, stippled areas of darker tone (at the top).  These fade out to white where the highlights are.  You can also clearly see the pencil lines I mentioned earlier.  These show where the lighter areas of the subject are.

Detail of a cow showing the technique in practice

And below you can see the finished illustration, with that back detail in context.

Cow pen and ink illustration

Below is an illustration of another dark fruit, the cherry.  Again, it’s the same technique. When seen this close up, you can see what an easy technique it is to execute.  Colour in blocks.  Do heavy dots round the immediate edges.  Do lighter dots where you move into highlights.

Cherry detail

And then, when you zoom out, you can see how effective the technique can be.  Behold!  Shiny fruit!

Completed pen and ink illustration of cherries

To be honest, it’s a similar approach when it comes to showing shine on fruit when you use watercolour.  Block in the darks, then blend outwards into the untouched paper of the highlights.  For more on this, please check out my blogs on showing shine on Hawthorn and Rowan.

Good luck illustrating, and don’t worry if all the stippling leaves you feeling dotty.  It’s a common afflication!

The post Blueberry: step by step Pen and Ink illustration appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Starting out

Begin with a decent pencil illustration of your subject.  No need for any shading or tonal detail, but an accurate line pencil drawing is required.

I use a Pentel P205 mechanical pencil for this, with an H or HB lead.  The paper I draw onto is Daler Rowney Heavyweight cartridge, which works well for pencil and for ink.  Pens are Unipin, and I have them with an 0.05, 0.1, 0.2. and 0.5mm width nibs.

Using the 0.1 or 0.2 nib pen, literally go over the pencil lines with ink.  Where the lines are less heavy (such as on the end of a leaf vein) break up the line into dots or smaller lines.  This allows the eye to accept that part of the image is “fading out”.

Pencil drawing of the Downy birch with pen poised for action

Pen lines: How much detail?

When you’re doing this, you don’t want to be thinking about lights and darks yet.  Just shape.  Sometimes, the nature of what you’re drawing will mean areas appear darker.  You can see this with the catkin below.  because there’s lots of detail, the catkin looks darker.

You can choose how much detail you add to any drawing.  Certainly at this stage, you don’t want to overcomplicate the picture.  The white areas of paper are important, you want to be sure you don’t swallow them up.  It’s quite a personal choice when it comes to the amount of detail you put into leaf veins, I tend to draw the lines til my eye sees them dissolve into the blade of the leaf.  At that point I fade the line out into white with little dots, increasingly small and increasingly far apart.

Drawing pen lines on top of the pencil lines

Adding shadow

Once you’ve done the lines, you want to add shadow.  you also want to break up the stark solidity of the line.  You can do this by stippling.  Stippling is using loads of tiny dots to represent shadow and tone.  In general, the larger the dots and closer together they are, the darker the shadow is.  Less pressure means each dot will be smaller.

You need to look really closely at your leaf to see where the shadows lie.  In general, the tradition in botanical illustration is to have a light source coming over your left shoulder. This informs the position of the shadows.  Of course, you can change this light source, but do be certain you’re consistent so that the shadows make sense.

Another thing to remember is that if a shadow is cast below a leaf vein (as below), then it’s likely that every vein on that side of the leaf will cast a similar shadow – below the vein.  Look at leaves, often if the shadow is cast below the lateral veins on one side of the midrib, the pattern will be flipped on the other side.

Stippling the shadow below the leaf veins

Softening the edges

The eye likes things to have edges, and our stark pen lines have provided this.  however, the eye also relishes a gentle transition from a dark line to a white area of paper.  Stippling from the edges inwards provides this.  More dots right up to the pen line, less and smaller dots as you move in and away from that edge.

Darkening the edge of the leaf

Shadows

As well as smaller shadows cast by the leaf veins, or the edge of a stem, you have larger and darker areas of shadow.  In the Downy birch, the second leaf on the bottom casts a dark shadow on the first one.  Shadows are always cast by something, so you need to keep an eye on the logic of the tonality in any illustration

How do you show this?

Well, start by blocking in the area of shadow.  Use a thicker ink pen for this, with an 0.5 nib.  Colour in the darkest part of the shadow, making it solid. Make sure you look closely at the subject to figure out the shape of this shadows.  You can see this shape below.

Leaves completed, working on dark shadow

Stems

For some reason best known to myself, instead of working into the dark shadows, I decided to sort out the leaf stem at this point.  It’s easy.  Using the same approach as before, soften the top edge of the stem with a line of small dots.  To suggest shadow on the underside of the stem, do two or three lines of dots on the bottom line of the stem.  You’ll also want to darken the areas around the nodes.

Stippling the stem

Softening the shadow

Now we need to make that dark shadow less stark.  Again, use lots of dots to ease out the crisp shadow edge a little.  You want the eye to register the area as dark shadow, but not to feel a jarring at how suddenly it ends, and moves onto the white of the paper.  Soften it with stippling.  This can take some doing as you are almost building a solid black on the very edge of the dark area.  As you may well have noticed by now, stippling takes AGES!

Working to soften the edges of the dark shadow

Downy birch catkins

I struggled a little with the catkins.  I understood the structure, and had figured out details of individual scales and flowers.  But representing this on the illustration was hard.  it was another of those challenges relating to scale.  Having large things (like a leaf or a tall plant) with tiny elements (such as teeny flowers or scales) on the same image is challenging.  the worst for this is Cow parsley and relatives.  Enormous plants, with miniscule individual white flowers, and intricately divided leaves.

Working into the shadow of these catkins was tough too.  I needed the right hand side of each cylinder to be in shade, to be darker.  but I didn’t want to lose the detail under a blanket of stippling.  The catkins also cast drop shadows on the leaf behind.  This meant the very edge of the catkin, on the right, had to be left white (or pale) so it showed up.

Working into the catkins

Rubbing out

Once the stippling is all done, it’s time to rub out the pencil lines.  I use a soft rubber, a Factis triangular, for this.  it can lift a tiny bit of the darkness of the ink, so use a light touch.  It can also leave the texture of the page feeling a little sticky.  But it does the job.

Looking at a completed illustration with the pencil removed always feels great.  It’s the last step it what is often a painfully long-winded process.

Rubbing out the pencil lines

Adding things you may have forgotten!

Just because you’ve finished, doesn’t mean you can’t return to the illustration and add things.  In this case, it was only the next day that I realised I’d not added the species specific tiny hairs to the stem of the Downy birch.

Not a problem.  Using my thinnest pen (0.05mm) I just popped them in along the length of the plant.

Adding hairs to the stem

Completed Downy birch illustration

And that’s the Downy birch leaves and catkins completed.  I also did some details of individual catkin scales, flowers, and fruits.

Then I handed over the illustration to the design team at Jonathan Cape, so they could prepare the illustration for inclusion in The Tree Line: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth by Ben Rawlence.

Completed pen and ink illustration

I believe they’ll be adding borders round the different illustrations, and one of the mock-ups looks a little like the image below.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the book.  It sounds like a timely and fascinating topic.  Looking at the trees growing on the edge of the arctic circle and seeing how they have been affected by climate change.  For fifty years they tree line has been creeping closer to the north pole, and Ben looks at what this means both for this northern biome and for the planet, and ultimately for us as well.

Below is a real-time film of me completing this illustration, along with me explaining the process and nattering away.

The post Step by step Downy Birch leaves appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Apologies for the grey background on some of the photos.  The final piece (at the end of a blog) shows a truer version of the colours.

Setting up

When you’re about to illustrate a subject that may take a while, like this Sycamore leaf (Acer pseudoplatanus), it’s important to make sure you have everything you need readily available.

Clear a (clean) space for yourself, if you’ve not got a dedicated table or studio.  Get a jar of fresh water.  Give your paint-box a cursory clean.  Have several specimens of the species you’re illustrating available.  Make sure all your equipment is right there; you don’t want to be having to go and find a tube of paint or a pencil in the middle of working, it could break your concentration.  Make a nice cup of tea.  Now you’re ready.

Equipment

I’m currently using Fluid 100 hotpress watercolour paper.  I draw with a mechanical pencil, a Pentel P205 0.5mm, direct onto the watercolour paper.  I like Winsor and Newton watercolours and use pans which I top up with paint from tubes. My trusty brush is always a Winsor and Newton series 7, number 1 size.

Leaf ready for paint

Decisions, decisions

Next, decide how you’ll tackle the subject.  This leaf is yellow with green and brown markings.  Should I paint each area of colour separately, or layer colours on top of one another?  Decide where your light source is (conventionally from the top left) and be sure you stick to this.  This is easy enough if you have a light and are painting from life!  Think about what colours you’ll be using to mix up the greens, yellows, and browns.  For this sketchbook study, I also need to decide how much of the leaf I’m planning on colouring.

I decide to lay down yellow first, then add top washes of greens and browns.  I’ll aim to colour approximately half of the leaf.

Base layer of Yellow

I mix a yellow that matches the yellows on the leaf.  This is Cadmium yellow light, plus a tiny bit of Yellow ochre, and a dab of Cadmium yellow dark.  I’m not brilliant and keeping track of which colour in my paint-box has which name, so apologies if this leads to confusion.

The consistency of the paint matters.  Too wet and there’s not enough colour, too dry and the paint doesn’t move right on the page.  Rather unpleasantly, I like to say aim for paint that’s similar to the thickness of blood.

Looking for darker areas, which mostly lie alongside the veins, plot in your darkest areas of yellow.  These can be hard to see and it’s worth extrapolating.  Use the areas of highest contrast on the leaf as a guide to where your shadows will lie.  If shadows fall below a vein and are darker to the left of a portion of leaf blade, then this may well be the pattern across that whole side of the leaf.

Paint in these areas across the leaf.  Be sure to concentrate the whole time and paint what you see rather than what you assume is there.

Softening the edges of the base layer

Once the yellow is dry, I dilute it into a lighter yellow with lots of clean water.  This makes the colour paler.  With watercolour, you always lighten colours by diluting them rather than muddying them by adding white.

Taking my brush I gently work around the edges of the yellow shapes.  This softens them.  It’s vital to leave plenty of white as the white of the page acts as your highlights.  Once you’ve covered an area of white paper with paint it’s impossible to lift that colour off, nor can you paint anything on top of it to get it good and white again.  Err on the side of caution, you can always make things darker at a later stage.

Adding a yellow background to the leaf

Once these layers are dry, we can add yellow to the surrounding spaces.  I speed up the drying process by using an electric fan heater, or a hair dryer.

A top layer of bright yellow is applied, over what I’ve just painted and most of the rest of the leaf.  This mix is not very watery, but not as thick as the initial yellow.  I apply it to the perimeters of the Sycamore leaf and the edges of the veins.  While it’s still wet I add water to the rest of the leaf and allow the yellow to bleed into these regions, albeit in a paler form.  Again, it’s vital to leave some areas of white and in fact ion this case it’s at this stage that I swallowed up too much of the white of the paper.

I also mix up a brown, Vandyke and Yellow ochre, and put some of this on the edges of the teeth of the leaf.  Again, I allow this to dry fully before going further.

Greens

This Sycamore leaf has big areas of green remaining, and I want to add these.  I repeat the steps I used to apply the yellow, looking all the time at my leaf to make certain I’m painting what I see rather than what I think might be there.  Adding areas of dark, and then softening them with a more dilute mix; I plot in the greens.  The paint mix in this case is Winsor and Newton Sap green, and yellow ochre, mixed with some Daniel Smith Spring green.  I always mix my greens, I’m yet to find a pre-mixed one which is close to the true colour of leaves.

Working into the Green areas

This leaf is proving a headache, and I hope that adding some darker areas to the green patches will help.  I mix a darker green, adding brown and a touch of purple to the mix.  Where the green touches the edges of the veins and the shadow is deepest, I pick out these darks.  It’s rather nerve-wracking as if you go too dark, the whole illustration is compromised.

Delineating the veins and leaf margins

To satisfy the eye, the edges of a leaf need to be crisp.  I use a yellowish brown for this, mixing Yellow ochre, Vandyke brown, and purple.  I pop the paint on the edges of the Sycamore leaf, then dilute it and pull a paler tint back into the leaf body.  This means there’s a gradation between the leaf and the edge, and it helps the illustration look more natural.

I also put some of this colour over the veins.  I am not delighted with the result, although I know I’m applying the right techniques.  Something extra that unifies the leaf is required.

A unifying Yellow top-wash

I go and have a cup of tea, and when I return I decide to whack a bright yellow wash over the whole thing.  It has to be said that this isn’t something I normally do, but I was feeling dissatisfied with the way the illustration was going.

I mix a medium consistency yellow colour, mostly Cadmium yellow.  Using quite a wet brush and working fast, I cover the entire leaf in this yellow.  Immediately it feels better, and is glowing a bit more.

I get a little carried away and mix up a tint of green and repeat the top wash.  It helps, but in doing this I lose more of those precious highlights.

Don’t overwork it!

I’ve reached a point where it’s ok.  If I go on adding layers over the entire leaf, then I’ll swallow up all my highlights and the entire illustration will become muddy and dull.

This is a tough decision, when to stop trying to redeem a painting.  If you get it wrong you end up with something you can’t fix.  Settling for something you know is decent is sometimes the best you can hope for.  I decide to wait for the paint to dry and to mix up browns for the leaf spots.

Leaf spots and detail

This is always the most fun, adding detail.  I mix up a dark brown, using lots of Cobalt blue and purple with a dark green and the Vandyke brown.  The paint is quite thick, and I make sure my brush has a sharp point as I’ll be picking out details.

Sycamore leaves often have these black spots, which are known as Tar Spots.  They don’t seem to do the tree any damage, and are a result of a parasitic fungal infection.  The pathogen is one Rhytisma acerinum

Illustrating these diseased areas requires the same level of concentration as painting the leaf itself.  They’re not the same colour throughout, and there are distinctive lines on some of the bark patches.  Not all the browned regions of the leaf are a result of Tar spot.  Some come from stress, and some are developing as autumn progresses.

I delineate the edges of the Tar spots with a sharp brush tip.  Once dry, I use a wet mix of a yellower brown, and allow the paint to dry and add its own edges to those I’ve illustrated.

With the tip of the brush I add the tiny speckles and spots that populate the leaf.

Final touches

I notice that there are tiny holes at the centre of some of these brown spots, and pick them out with Permanent White gouache.  This paint is also useful for covering up mistakes, and I use it quite thickly.

Finished!

The sketchbook illustration is done.  It’s not quite as good as I want it to be, but it’s serviceable

This leaf was illustrated as I painted it, on film, and I think that trying to paint and explain myself at the same time inevitably has some effect on my work.  However, as a sketchbook study of a Sycamore leaf on the turn, it’s good enough.  It’s one detail of a sheet of information on the Sycamore I’m completing for FOR Sweden, who have commissioned another batch of invasive species studies.  For more of my Sketchbook illustrations, check out my online gallery, or see which of the originals are available to buy.

If you’d like to see the film (be warned, it’s an hour long!) feel free to take a look:

There’s also an accompanying blog which discusses how I drew up the leaf  This too has a film of the process.

The post Botanical Illustration of a Sycamore Leaf appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Choose a subject

I chose to illustrate a Sycamore leaf, in autumn colours.  This really was a case of killing three birds with one stone.  I wanted to think about drawing and make a film, I’d had a separate commission to illustrate an autumn leaf, and FOR Sweden had commissioned me to do sketchbooks studies of, amongst other plants, the Sycamore.

I’m also fond of Sycamore leaves, there’s something very lovely about their palmate shape.  They’re also really easy to get hold of!

Sketch a basic shape

When I draw, I often just pick up a pencil and start making a line.  However, I think this only comes with lots of practise, so wanted to show how I’d tackle the leaf if I wasn’t feeling confident.

First, I plot in a very basic shape.  I use incredibly light pencil, and very little pressure.  This shape shows the form the leaf will fit into, and I find adding the central vein and stalk, even at this preliminary stage, helps.

I’ve increased the contrast in the scan so you can actually see the pencil lines.

Use the veins to guide you

Next I plot in the veins, working hard to get the angles correct.  Again, this is really light pencil as I’ll be redrawing the veins in more detail a bit later on.

Roughly add the outline of the leaf

Finding the edges of the leaf is the next challenge.  Sycamore leaves have 5 lobes, each with a central vein.  Figuring out the basic shape of these, and how they relate to each other means looking really hard at the specimen.

The places where the side lobes join the rest of the leaf line up, this is helpful.

Add Detail to the Leaf Margins

Next, work into this map.  This means looking at the margin of the leaf, and recording each individual tooth as accurately as possible.  Leaf margins vary from species to species, so getting this right matters.  Sometimes teeth are blunt, closely spaced, double-serrated…  Take a close look and record what you see as accurately as possible.  For more on variety in leaf margins check out my blog.

Add More Detail

The shape of the leaf is done, now you can add detail.  Look for lateral veins, and smaller veins coming off them.  Try and remember to fit form to function.  Leaf veins carry vital minerals, water, and nutrients to and from all parts of the leaf blade.  This explains why the network of veins is so thorough, it’s a similar function to our own circulatory system.  Remember this as you draw.

Finishing up

It can be hard to know where to stop with a line drawing.  The more you look, the more you see.  If you’re not careful you can get really lost in amongst the network of tiny, intricate veins.  It’s a pleasant way to spend a few hours but may not tie in with what you want from your drawing.

This Sycamore leaf is a pencil drawing which I’m going to paint up in watercolour, so too much pencil detail isn’t that desirable.  I want enough there as a guide, but not so much that it compromises the paint that’ll be laid on top of it. (It’s worth mentioning that with some smooth watercolour papers, such as this one, you can erase pencil lines once you’ve finished painting.)

Equipment

For this drawing I worked on Fluid 100 hotpress watercolour paper.  This is cause I’m going to add paint at a later stage.  If I were doing a pen or pencil drawing without paint, I’d use Daler Rowney Heavyweight paper. I love mechanical pencils, sometimes called propelling pencils.  They have sharp nibs and you can keep these sharp by simply breaking the lead off as you draw.  This means you don’t need to keep stopping to use a pencil sharpener.  I use Pentel P205 pencils with 0.5mm lead, HB or H.  Factis make great erasers, I love their triangular ones.

Below is a photo of the line drawing once I’d added colour.

Conclusion

The main thing to remember at all times when you’re drawing is to draw what you see rather than what you believe is there.  Drawing is all about looking.  Once you start to see things right, then recording that is simply a matter of practise.  You train your brain to translate what you see into lines on the page.  Like catching a ball, or any other activity requiring co-ordination, it requires practise to get good.  The most wonderful part about it is that the more you do it, the better you get!

Feel free to browse my blog on why drawing is vital , and on doing natural history and botanical illustrations in pencil.  Finally, you may want to have a go at my guest blogger’s seven exersises which help ideas on how to practise your drawing skills.

And, as promised, here’s the film of me drawing this leaf in real time:

The post How to Draw: Sycamore Leaf appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Habit sketch of Lupin, Lupinus polyphyllus

Research: Gathering reference

The first step is to co-ordinate and gather information.  I know that there need to be sketches and notes on leaves, flowers, and seeds.  Along with a habit or growth sketch, there also has to be a comparison between Lupinus polyphyllus and the garden lupin Lupinus x regalis.  Lupins hybridise readily which adds confusion when figuring out differences between species.

My normal reference books don’t cover these species, as neither are common garden escapes in the UK.  (Flora of the British Isles by Clapham, Tutin and Moore (3rd ed) and New Flora of the British Isles by Stace are excellent for information on wild plants.)

Luckily, Collins Flower Guide by Streeter, and The Wildflowers of the British Isles by Streeter and Gerrard include visual and written descriptions.

Online resources are good too.  There’s NatureSpot, the Invasive Species Compedium, and Kew’s Plants of the World online.  In a pinch, you can look at Wikipedia as well, but it’s important to be on the look out for mistakes.

I take notes from lots of sources, then amalgamate them into a list of details to include.

Research: Gathering images

Once the written research is done, I know what specific details I need to get photos or illustrations of.  In an ideal world, the lupin would be in flower and I could draw from life, but at the time of writing (spring) nothing is in bloom, and certainly no lupins.

I use the same visual and online references as before, always cross-referencing photos with written notes and other images of the plant.  It’s so easy to label a photo incorrectly, and I’d hate to perpetuate the error.

Thumbnail sketches

With all the reference sorted, I start plotting how the image will look on the page.

I plan where the central lupin illustration will sit, then add the details around the edges.  I have to leave space for written notes as well as for the images.

Thumbnail sketch with information and images required

Details of the Lupin and materials

I use the same materials I always use.  Winsor & Newton watercolour paints, a propelling P205 Pentel mechanical pencil, Winsor & Newton series 7 brush (size 1), and I’m working on Fluid 100 hotpress paper.

The leaves are made of 10 to 17 leaflets, each being 2.5 – 5cm across.  The petioles are twice as long as the leaflets.  These leaf-facts can easily be added to the main plant.  I add water droplets as one of the things I always notice is how silvery they look in the centre of each leaf.

Finished piece: Leaves of the lupin

The flowers are showy, carried in terminal racemes.  Each one is 12-14 mm long.  The calyx is two-lipped.  The style is curved, the stigma is capitate (shaped with a blob at the top),  Stamens are monadelphous (the filaments are fused into a tube).

Seeds are legumes (like peas and beans), in flattened pods.  Pods are silky and become browner with age, and there may be contractions between the seeds.  Seeds are mottled, with 5 to 9 appearing in each pod.

Finished piece: Seeds and seedpods of the Garden Lupin

Comparison to Lupinus x regalis

L. x regalis has smaller and thinner leaves.  This can easily be shown with two leaflets presented as line drawings, side by side.

Comparison line drawing of the leaflets of two lupin species

The flowering spike looks different, chunkier and more compact.  Flowers are bunched up towards the top.  Each flower has a prominent claw on its keel.  Unlike L. polyphyllus, L. x regalis has 9 to 15 leaflets per leaf.  The petiole is shorter.  Flowers can be orange or yellow; these colours don’t occur in L. polyphyllus.

Pencil rough of flowering spike of L. x regalis

This is pretty straight-forward.  Along with the leaflet comparison, there will need to be a habit illustrations of L. x regalis with orange and yellow blooms.

Deciding where to place different elements

It’s important to help the eye travel around a composition, and to keep similar bits of information near one another.  Heavier illustrations, such as the habit drawing, need to be at the base of the page, to anchor it.  Because of this, I place this at the bottom right.  As a result, the details and illustrations of the seeds and pods fit in the bottom left.

The top left is used for flower cross sections from different views, and notes explaining the fusion of stamens.

The lupin sketch is wider at the base, so there’s room for written notes next to the flowering spike. There’s also room for the comparison notes.  The line drawing of the two leaflets fits in here, as does a study of a Lupinus x. regalis flower.

Pencil rough of the Garden Lupin, awaiting colour

The habit sketch of L. x regalis needed to be changed as the client wasn’t sure it felt right.  I rubbed it out, and the sheet instantly felt far easier to view.

The colours of the L. x regalis are far brighter than the gentle blues of our main lupin, so I decide to do the habit sketch on a separate sheet.  This means the eye won’t be distracted from the blue flowers, and makes the main lupin sketchbook sheet a more attractive finished piece.

Comparison of Lupinus x regalis and Lupinus polyphyllus flowering heads

The two flowering heads can sit alongside one another thanks to pasting them into position with Photoshop.

Applying watercolour

Once drawn up, I decide what medium to use for each part.  These decisions change as I paint.  The cross-sections of flowers were going to be simple line illustrations.  Colours, yes, but without detail or tone.  However, once I got onto them I enjoyed painting them so much that I was loathe to stop.

Lupin flower cross sections and different views

Similarly, I planned to have two of the three leaves in graphite.  I changed my mind at the last minute as I feel the balance between colour and monochrome worked better with two leaves in green.

The green was tricky to mix.  It was based on cobalt green, with yellow ochre and cadmium yellow light.  There was also a touch of Vandyke brown and purple.

Lupin leaf

I adore the blue of the lupin flowers.  It’s a mix of Cobalt blue, a touch of purple, some opera pink and a drop of Doctor Martin’s Hydrous inks.  These inks mix in with watercolour and give a real kick to any colour.  The blue used here was Ultramarine.

The line drawings of the two leaves worked, and showed the differences in size and shape.  I normally do such drawings in pencil, but will use the technique of a coloured line drawing again.  As always, all painting was done with my Winsor & Newton series 7 brush.

Scale drawings

The final step was to provide a scale illustration, showing the size of the lupin plant next to a person.  I hate illustrating people, and am not good at it…  Providing a pen and ink and a full colour version gives some choice to the client.  I prefer the line drawing, and I’ll be interested to see which one the client ends up using.

Scale drawing of Lupin

The finished piece

Finally, it was complete.  All the elements had been researched, laid out, annotated, and illustrated.  I hope this way of conveying a lot of information is as useful to others as it is to me, it’s a helpful combination of written and visual facts.

Finished Garden Lupin sketchbook study page

The clients like the illustrations, and have already shared some of the information boards that they’ll be using at a horticultural conference.

I hope this blog gives an idea of how you go from the name of a plant, to a finished study.  Of course the information you need to include varies from species to species, but the lightness and flexibility of the sketchbook format is something I’m very fond of.

Lupin sketch in situ

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