The Elder Sambucus nigra is common in hedgerows and woodland, and appears as a shrub as often as a tree.  It has strongly scented blossoms in spring, deep purple berries in autumn, and pale wood.

There’s an enormous amount of folklore associated with this species, and it’s a firm favourite with both foragers and those interested in herbal remedies.

Identification: Tree shape

Elder grows as trees up to 10m, or as shrubs.  Branches are often curved, and the wood is brittle.  Elder trees have short trunks or “boles”.  Compared to other tree species, elder don’t have loads of branches, and these grow from low down.

Elder tree

You often see Elder trees in thickets or scrubby woodland, or growing alongside streams with a variety of other species.  If an Elder is given space and light, it’ll grown into a tree.

Elder shrubs are common too as the species shows in both growth habits.  Lots of branches emerge at ground level, forming a thicket of a bush.

This species loves nitrogen-rich habitats, and will colonise anywhere where people have lived, or where nitrogen levels are high in the soil (such as fields where animals have been grazed).  It grows fast, and establishes itself quickly.  If you see a tree growing from a wall or in a farmyard, it’s very likely to be an Elder.

Identification: Leaves

Elder leaves are compound, that is made of lots of leaflets (for more on leaf shape, check out my blog).  In this case, there are 5 to 7 leaflets, with one terminal leaflet.  Leaflets are opposite each other.  Although the leaves have a relatively long stalk, each individual leaflet lies close to the stem.  Each leaflet is 3 to 9 cm long.

Elder leaf and pencil study

The leaves of Elder are oval and a bright pale green.  They’re toothed along the margins. (Click here for my blog on leaf veins and margins).

Elder branch with two compound leaves (each made of five leaflets)

The venation of the leaves isn’t very obvious, and is rather similar to that of lots of other oval leaves.  Side veins branch from the central mid-rib, and are mostly opposite one another.

Elder leaves

Some people think Elder leaves smell nasty, and although they do let off a pungent odour when bruised, I wouldn’t call it unpleasant.

Identification: Flowers

The creamy froth of elder flowers is instantly recognizable, by smell as well as by sight.  The smell is a heady perfume, and one of my favourite scents of summer.

Flowers cover the tree or shrub, borne in flat-headed umbels. Each umbel is 10 to 20 cm across; individual flowers are 5mm across.  Looking into the branching structure, you can see there are five main rays to each umbel.

Sketchbook study figuring out flower growth pattern

The flowers are closely packed, and have cream or white petals.  Anthers are a creamy colour too.  Each individual flower has five rounded petals, and 5 stamens.  Anthers protrude beyond the petals, helping the umbel look even frothier.

Small flies pollinate the flowers, which may explain why the scent of the blossom is so heady and heavy.  Elderflowers appear in May or June and will be in flower for 4 to 6 weeks.

Individual elder flowers

Identification: Fruit

Elderberries are shiny and black when fully ripe.  The branches they’re borne on are frequently flushed dark magenta.  Unripe berries are crimson.  Each berry is square-ish, and very juicy.

Sketchbook study of elder berries

It’s really common to see elder berries in partial umbels – lots of the berries will have fallen off or been eaten; the remainders look scruffy because of the empty stalks along side them.  They last well into late autumn, eventually shrivelling or falling in the frosts.

Working on an elderberry illustration

The berries are very rich in vitamin A and C and provide a vital food supply for birds and small mammals.  However, they are also quite sour, and both leaves and berries are rich in Hydrogen cyanide.  This can cause vomiting in people.  For a fascinating look at poisons in our everyday foods, check out this BBC Future article I stumbled on.

Identification: Bark

The bark of an elder tree is thick, smooth and corky; deep ridges develop with age. The branches are smooth, with pithy insides.  This pith can be removed to leave a hollow twig, and elder wood has been used for centuries to make whistles and musical instruments.

Twigs have obvious lenticels and are thick and greyish, or greenish.

The jelly ear fungus Auricularia judae is a brownish jelly-like fungus that often grows on elder and I use it as another way to identify the species.

Similar species

Some other tree species also have frothy white blossoms.  The Rowan does, but the flowers are far less scented, and the tree rarely grows as a shrub.  Guelder rose also has panicles of white flowers, but these are much larger blossoms and the leaves are a totally different shape.  The berries are orange and scarlet, never black.  However, as Guelder rose also forms a shrub, it’s worth a mention.

Guelder rose Viburnum opulus

Ash Fraxinus excelsior, Walnut Juglans regia, and Rowan Sorbus aucuparia  also have compound leaves, but the walnut leaves are arranged in an alternate pattern.  Ash leaves have more obvious veins and feel less “flat” than elder.  Rowan leaves are smaller and sharper.  All have toothed margins, but with a little experience you’ll notice differences between the shape and sharpness of the teeth.

Ash twig and leaves Fraxinus excelsior

History: Folklore

Like Hawthorn and Rowan, Elder is alive with folklore and history.  It’s interesting that all three of these trees produce highly visible white blossoms and distinctive colourful berries.  I guess they were easily recognized, common, and therefore very much in people’s awareness for millenia.

Elder has long been associated with “the little people”, and those who believe in faery folk will be very familiar with it.  If you were lucky, you might see the Queen of the Fairies passing by under an elder on Midsummer eve.  Lots of references advise against sleeping under an elder; this also relates to belief in other-worldly peoples.

Elder shrub

If you had to chop down an elder tree, you were supposed to ask permission from the Elder mother, a female spirit that inhabited the tree.

It was seen as a protective tree, and would be planted near houses and dairies.  Cheese cloths would be hung to dry on elder branches, and it was thought to prevent the milk form turning.  Interestingly, the elder leaves do repel flies, so these beliefs could have contributed to the hygiene of the dairy.  Herdsmen would carry elder switches.

Elder berries and leaves

However, there was a darker side.  A child beaten with an elder stick would never grow.  Judas Iscariot was said to have hung himself from an elder tree, and criminals were crowned with elder as a symbol of their shame.  Again on a Christian theme, there was a suggestion that the cross on which Jesus was crucified was elder wood.  It was not to be brought into the house, and if you burnt it you were sure to see the devil.  Witches could transform themselves into Elder.

The rule of thumb was to treat the elder with a healthy dose of respect.  And caution.

History: Food

The flowers of the elder can be used to make a lovely scented champagne, or fried as fritters.

Once heated, the berries can be reduced into deliciously strong-flavoured jams and jellies and syrups.

Illustrating elder berries

Flowers and berries are made into drinks and cordials.  Until 1900 you could buy spiced elderberry wine in the streets of London.

The most famous elder drink is the spirit Sambucca, made from elder berries and aniseed.  Traditionally, this is presented with one coffee bean and is set on fire as it’s served.

History: Medicine

Most parts of the elder have been used for medicine.  There’s some suggestion that even the ancient Egyptians used elderberries medicinally.  The medieval herbalist John Evelyn described elder as, “a kind of Catholicon against all Infirmities whatever”.

Berries are high in vitamins C and A, and (once you’ve destroyed the hydrogen cyanide by heating) are used to cure a plethora of conditions.  Sore-throats, coughs, respiratory problems – all were treated with elderberry syrup or “rob”.  They’re also a laxative, and diuretic.

The bark is a strong purgative.  Leaves can be crushed into poultices that are applied to bruises, sprains, and chill-blains.

Flowers are dried into tea and used to treat colds.  You can also wash your face in water soaked with elderflower to preserve your youthful looks.  Even today, elderflower is used in eye and skin lotions.  Some say that if you soak elderflower in cold water it helps relieve symptoms of hay-fever.

Adele Nozedar, whose books I illustrate, foraging for elderberries

Elder is rich in anthocyanins and antioxidants, both of which are known to boost the immune system.

Uses

There is a lot of pith in elder branches, which means when you hollow them out they make good musical instruments.  Children made small toys and penny whistles from elder wood.  The wood was also used to make pipes, pea-shooters and bellows.  Small spoons, and combs were sometimes made from elder wood.

The pith was used as a blotter, and to hold botanical specimens whilst they were being prepared for microscope slides or botanical sections.

Elder berries and leaves

Harder mature elder wood was sometimes made into cogs for machines.

The leaves contain natural fly repellent which probably explains why they were so often planted near houses and stables.

Finally, the elder is really useful as it produces a whole variety of different dyes.  The leaves give a green hue, flowers produce a lilac colour.  The berries make for deep and fade-resistant black and purples.  And even the bark was used to make black dye, used either for dying wool or ones hair.  The highly esteemed Harris tweed used elder to dye its’ materials, even though elder trees are less common in northern Scotland than in the rest of the UK.

Elder: Wildlife

The berries are eaten by birds and mammals, and the leaves are food for the Buff ermine, dot, White-spotted pug, and Swallow-tail moth caterpillars.  Insects drink the nectar from the flowers.  Voles and dormice eat flowers and berries.

Field vole Microtus agrestis

Threats

Luckily, not too many things threaten this amazing tree.  Red spider mites can suck the sap of the tree, and blackfly damage leaves.

Conclusion

Elder is an extraordinarily adaptable plant.  It’s been associated with Jesus, witches and fairies.  It can bring good or bad luck.  Berries are poisonous but can be made into delicious syrups.  The flowers can be eaten, used as a beauty treatment, or used against colds.  Elder wood makes toys, cogs, and instruments.  Personally, what I love most about elder is the smell when the flowers are out.  The buzzing of flies, the heavy scent in the air, and the rustle of leaves in a gentle breeze.  It sums up summer for me.

Jersey Post Fruits and Berries stamp issue copyright Jersey Post 2019

Online sources for this blog include websites of The Woodland Trust, Trees for life, and Naturespot.  Book references for this blog include Adele Nozedar’s The Tree Forager, the excellent The Greenwood Trees by Christina Hart-Davies, and the Reader’s Digest “The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain” (out of print but commonly available second-hand).

The post Trees: Elder appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Sketchbook pages

FOR have commissioned several sets of invasive species over the years, and favour the sketchbook approach.

For me, this is a treat.  Sketchbook studies incorporate all the important aspects of a plant that help you to identify it.  However, you can pick and choose which elements to work up to a finished level.  This gives me an enormous amount of freedom to play about with composition, and to focus on aspects of the plant that really interest me.  There’s a gallery of these on my website, and many originals (including the Heath star moss) are available to buy.

Himalayan Blackberry Rubus armeniacus for FOR

Illustrating Moss

I’ve illustrated moss before, and always enjoy it.  These plants are so totally different from the normal vascular species I illustrate, and that’s one of the things I love about them.  Their details are tiny, which also appeals to me.  Luckily, I’ve got lots of books on moss (such as Mosses and Liverworts of Britain and Ireland by Atherton, Bosanquet, and Lawley) which are invaluable.

Red bog moss Sphagnum capillifolium

Anatomical details that need including are the shoots which emerge from the main body of the moss, sometimes known as the protonema.  Spores and the shoots bearing them (sporophytes) need to be recorded, along with the spore capsules and their hoods (calyptra).  Individual gametophyte shoots also need illustrating. Stems (also referred to as the caulid or axis) and individual leaves (phyllids) need detailing, along with information on the cellular structure of the leaves.

There seem to be quite a lot of different terms for the same structures, depending on which bryologist you ask.  For this reason, do excuse any botanical mistakes I might make in this blog!

Sphagnum capillifolium details

Illustrating these elements requires pretty full on dives into my moss books, and often the community of bryologists on Twitter or the British bryological society help out.  One day, I need to get one of these lovely and eminent botanists to write a guest blog on the theme “Introduction to Mosses”.  It’d be invaluable for me, as well as other moss-dabblers!

Heath star moss: Specimen

The first thing to do is to get my hands on some actual Heath star moss.  I’m extremely fortunate to know one Ray Woods, a top moss expert, who lives nearby.  Despite the world being in Covid-19 lockdown, he found some Campylopus introflexus on his greenhouse roof and sent it to me.

Next, I drew it up in pencil and, once I got the ok from the client, could apply some colour.

Heath star moss: Is it wet…or is it dry?

One of the quirks of this particular species is that it looks totally different when it’s wet and when it’s dry.  When wet, it has a bright green, star-like appearance.

Wet Heath star moss Campylopus introflexus

When it’s dry it looks almost black, and very scaly,  Each phyllid (leaflet) has a long, glassy tip.  These bend at sharp angles when they’re dry.  Tons of these tiny “leaves” with their white, spindly points makes a patch of Heath star moss look almost hoary.  This was an absolute pain to draw, but become easier to understand, visually, once I got some colour on the illustration.

Heath star moss Campylopus introflexus

The two illustrations above are of the exact same specimen.  I didn’t have a lot of the moss, so only broke off a fragment and allowed it to dry in the airing cupboard.  The rest I kept moist as I needed to illustrate details of the spore capsule and phyllids, which are easier to manage when wet.

Heath star moss: Individual shoots

As well as a clump of moss, I needed to include details of the individual shoots when wet and dry.  The main focus here has to be the points.  I’m tempted to call them awns, as one would do if talking about grasses, but am pretty sure they have their own specific name somewhere….  These tips are always bent, but become very recurved when the moss is dry.  It’s a diagnostic of the species; if these spines recurve more than 90 degrees then it’s probably the Heath star moss.

Heath star moss Campylopus introflexus shoots

I also include top views of the shoot (also referred to as a fascicle.  See, I told you there were lots of different words for the same things!), although this didn’t help much with the dry specimen.

To ensure botanical honesty, these illustrations are both pf the exact same fascilce.

Heath star moss: Cellular details

The next challenge was to look at an individual phyllid.  I had access to good microscopic images from the British bryological society, and thanks to Ray I could also get my compound and dissecting microscope out on real specimens.  Knowing I was working with the correct species is more reassuring than I can possibly tell you.  I am forever indebted to ray who has often given me labelled specimens of moss.

Heath star moss Campylopus introflexus microscopic details

So here is an image of an individual phyllid, and its margin under a higher magnification.  I was keen to have the spine clearly included.  Below are some of the British bryological society reference photos I was able to use.

The shape of the cells at the edge of the phyllid is often species specific (as in this case), hence including the detail.

Heath star moss: Sporophyte

Illustrating the sporophyte was much easier.  My specimen had a few spore cases, so I had a look at them under the microscope.  I couldn’t identify or get images of any spores, but decided that didn’t matter too much.  The shape and colour of the spore capsule was the main thing.

Heath star moss Campylopus introflexus sporophyte

I think the stems (caulid or axis) might be more wiggly and curled up when the specimen is dry, but as I didn’t see mention of this in the literature I decided not to make that a focus.

Heath star moss; Habit sketch

The easiest part of this sheet was completing the habit sketch.  I had photos of clumps of this moss, and I had my specimen.  I’ve also got a decent idea of what the limestone substrate it’s growing on looks like.  It was a simple matter of collating these resources.

I added a yellow leaf for scale, and decided pretty fast that the habit sketch would be of the moss when it was wet.  Drawing it dry had already made me come close to despair.  In any case, it looks lovely when it’s wet and far less appealing when dried out.

Heath star moss Campylopus introflexus on stone

Conclusion

When the sheet was done, I was really pleased.  It included all the required details, and hung together (more or less) as a composition.

When I illustrate moss, I take one contact lens out so I can see the detail.  I leave the other one in.  A week of doing this left me with my head spinning (but no headaches, luckily).  I was relieved the commission was complete.

Without Ray and the British bryological society there’s no way I’d be able to illustrate mosses.  And I absolutely am on the look out for someone with the skills and willingness to write a guest blog here on the basic anatomy of moss.

But for now, I just look forward to the next time an email pops into my inbox, asking for an illustration of another species of moss.

If you’d like to see how FOR have used my sketchbook studies, please take a look at the PDFs available on their website.  There’s a list at the bottom right.  Telling which species is which is tricky though, my Swedish isn’t any good at all!

The post Heath Star Moss Sketchbook study 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.

Sketchbook studies

All the botanical illustrations I do for FOR are in a sketchbook format.  I love working this way; it gives me the opportunity to include tons of details alongside a larger illustration of the whole plant.  Over the years I’ve figured out what elements I need to include for each plant, so can figure out the composition before getting started.  In general, details of flowers, fruits seeds, roots, and a cross section of the stem is needed.  These elements need to be accompanied by a habit sketch, a full colour image that shows the entire plant growing, and close ups of any unusual characteristics that the plant may have.  I always include written notes, as much to jog my own memory as to help the viewer.

Cow Parsley Sketchbook study Anthriscus sylvestris

Another appealing thing about the sketchbook studies is that you can leave parts of the illustration unfinished.  This gives me the opportunity to get into really intense detail on things like an individual leaf, or one bract.  The pressure to have the entire drawing completed in full colour is gone, which makes the process more relaxing.

Cow Parsley in the spring

For those of you who have been in the British countryside in early June, you’ll already know all about the Cow parsley.  If frothes up along hedgerows, spilling tiny white flowers out into rarely-used roads and paths.  At the same time, the May blossom is out, so you often have the wonderful sight of lots of white blossom curving down from the shrubs and trees, being met by the Cow parsley flowers growing upward from margins of fields and lanes.  It’s very beautiful.

Drawing the Cow Parsley

Umbellifers, like Cow parsley, are a real challenge to draw.  I’m sure I’ve moaned about the challenges before in blogs on Hogweeds.  The problem is that the plant is often really tall and leaves spread widely from the stem.  However, each element of the plant is tiny.  The flowering heads are made from hundreds of tiny individual flowers.  the outermost ones are zygomorphic, meaning their outermost petals are a different shape to those of the internal flowers.  The leaves are divided, or pinnate.  Sometimes divided several times over, as with the Cow parsley.  This results in very beautiful and feathery leaves.  But combining the size with the detail is very difficult, hence my aversion to all members of the Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae) family.  I love the way they look.  I live in fear of being asked to illustrate them!

This commission came in at the height of Cow parsley season.  I spent a morning gathering perfect plants, taking photos, and considering the best approach to the illustration.  Once home, I pinned an entire plant up against the trampoline in the garden, with a sheet behind.  I always take photos at the same time, sadly plants don’t live forever and some wither within hours of being picked.

Cow parsley set up to draw in the garden

Cow Parsley: Flowering times and leaves

Identifying Cow parsley is easy, mainly because of when it flowers.  It’s the earliest of these white-flowered umbellifers to bloom, especially in the southern UK.  And it’s certainly the most common.  Look for it from early April through June; by July all you’ll see is some basal leaf rosettes and seed-heads.

Cow parsley sketchbook study done back in 2015

The leaves set the plant apart from other common and similar species, such as Hogweeds.  They are 2-3 pinnate, which means they’re divided into leaflets, then each of these leaflets is sub divided.  It gives them a feathery, fern-like appearance. They tend to be a muted spring green, although can be tinged red or yellow when stressed by drought.

Cow parsley leaf variety and plant overview to show difference between small upper and large lower leaves

Leaves either grow from a basal rosette at the bottom of the plant, or alternately up the stem.  Lower leaves are borne on long, broad stalks, higher up the plant the leaves have far shorter and thinner petioles.  The big basal leaves can be up to 30cm, with individual divided lobes measuring 10 – 30mm

Cow parsley: Stems

Stems are gently ridged, and hollow.  They don’t have blotches of colour like some other Apiaceae species.  The stems can grow from 50 – 150cm, making this quite a tall plant.  Stems tend to be slightly downy at the top, and hairless down by the base of the plant.

Cow parsley stems

Cow parsley: Flowers

The frothy flowering heads of this plant family are umbels; these are lots of little groups of flowers carried on stalks or rays.  Each umbel has 6 – 12 of these rays which are about 2cm long.  The arrangement of flowers has males in the centre and hermaphrodite flowers around the margins.  Unless you’re inclined to get your hand lens out, this won’t be immediately obvious, although you’ll certainly see a difference in size between the inside and margin flowers.

Cow parsley flowers and detail of a small umbel seen from above

Each flower has 5 white petals and is 3 – 5 mm across. A whole umbel measures 10 – 60cm, but there’s plenty of variety.

There are no bracts right below the flowers, but some appear lower down.  Sepals are there but are so tiny as to be inconspicuous.  There are 5 stamen and 2 thin stigma.

The outermost flowers are zygomorphic which means their petals are of different sizes.

Cow parsley: Fruit

Fruit are 6-9mm long and carried in pairs.  They start green and become brown at maturity.  Each one has a short beak-like tip.

Cow parsley seeds

Conclusion

Why do I love Cow parsley so much?  Well, it’s a combination of factors.  The delicacy of the frond-like leaves is visually very pleasing.  The mass of scented flowers smell of the countryside.  And the way Cow parsley lines lanes and hedges is a harbinger of warmer days, and long golden hours spent revelling in an English summertime.  So, for all of these reasons, and despite the issues with detail and scale, I’m happy to go on learning and drawing this gorgeous plant.

Illustration completed for FSC guide to Flowers of Walks & Waysides

Please see my step by step Youtube film below

The post Cow Parsley: All about an Umbellifer appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Personal Preference

As mentioned before, choosing your equipment can be quite a personal choice.  We develop loyalty to brands and types of drawing tool over the years, and just because it becomes our favourite shouldn’t mean everyone should be expected to feel the same.

This is particularly true for pencils.  Personally, I love using mechanical pencils.  However, I know some illustrators and artists, even within the field of botanical illustration, loathe them.

Pentel P205 pencil with 0.5mm H and HB replacement leads

Why Mechanical pencils?

So why do I love them?

Well, for one thing they give a sharp and clean line.  This is important when you’re trying to record precise details, such as hairs on a stem.  Because the nib itself is sharp it lays down less graphite, so there’s less grey dust to get smudged across the page.

I love the speedy way you can sharpen them; literally, just push hard on the edge of the lead, it snaps, and you have a perfect sharp nib again.  You barely have to stop drawing, let along scrabble about for a pencil sharpener.

These sharp lines are also really helpful in producing “pencil roughs”, a pencil drawing of the subject.  These get emailed off to the client who can ask for adjustments (or a total re-draw) and means mistakes get picked up before you’ve opened the paint box.  Pencil can be rubbed out.  Watercolour cannot.

Pencil rough illustration of Branched Bur-reed Sparganium erectum

I realise that if you were looking for deep shadows and soft edges, mechanical pencils might not be ideal.  However, I’ve learned how to get quite a depth of tonality from these pencils.  As always, the line is darker if you press harder.

Finished pencil illustration of White waterlily Nymphaea alba

What brand and leads to use?

Again, this is quite a personal choice.

I have always used, and am wedded to, the Pentel P205.  I’m not alone in this passion as Ian Hedley’s blog shows.  (This blog also has lots of technical information on the structure of the pencil).

I use quite a hard lead, either HB or H.  My preferred width is 0.5mm (hence the “5” in P205).

Specimen and pencil line drawing of everlasting sweet pea Lathyrus latifolius

I also like the fact that these pencils can rub-out easily (depending on paper).  I use them on hotpress watercolour paper as well as on cartridge paper.

I asked K.T. from Goldspot pens (who wrote a recent guest blog on waterproof inks) for other suggestions to add to the list:

“I also love the Pentel 205! But there are several other mechanical pencil brands that draw and write wonderfully that I’d be honored to mention.  One of my favorites is the Kaweco Sport mechanical pencil.  The Kaweco AC Sport and Kaweco Al Sport are also great options in the Kaweco line of mechanical pencils.  The luxurious pen brand Caran d’Ache also has beautifully functional mechanical pens for $5 up-to $500 (believe it or not!).

The Staedtler pen brand has tons of great, cheap options that draw and write incredibly.  Their Micro 775 and Micro 774 are incredible drawing and drafting pens for architects and sketch artists.”

A note on Cartridge paper

Lots of heavy-weight papers are good to use.  Ones which can take a certain amount of erasing, and are heavy enough not to rumple or crease are prefect.

I use Daler-Rowney Smooth-Heavyweight paper (220g / 135lb) which seems to be widely available.  This paper can even take a certain amount of watercolour, and is great for pencil and ink.

Choosing an eraser

I can’t count the number of times I’ve used a rubber (eraser) and had it feel really hard, and smear the pencil instead of removing it.  It’s also easy to damage the page with a rubber that’s too rough.

About 15 years ago I started using Factis triangle Tri-24 erasers and they’re now my go-to choice.  They’re cheap, soft, and effective.

Factis erasers

I also use them when erasing pencil lines from below finished watercolour (yes, that’s something you can do, if your hotpress watercolour paper is tough and smooth enough!) and when rubbing out pencil guide lines of a finished pen and ink piece.  Sometimes you have to press pretty hard to get the pencil off completely, but it usually works and I’m yet to damage a dry illustration with these rubbers.

False Virginia Creeper, rubbing out the pencil rough drawing under the paint

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’m going to stress again that the choice of materials is in no way mandatory, but a personal matter.  This blog describes the tools I’ve come to love and rely on, but I’d encourage people to ask around, try different brands and pencils, and see what feels best.

Pansy with pencil illustration

Stockists will vary depending on where you’re based.  If you can support your local art shop, please do.  If that’s not easy, or their stock is limited, then larger art suppliers have good online provision.  In the UK, I favour Jackson’s art, Cass Art, London Graphic Centre, and Ken Bromley.  I haven’t lived in the USA for many years, but know that Dick Blick are a good supplier.

Ideally, I’d love people to feel free to use the comments section to talk about their favourite pencils, cartridge paper, and rubbers.  It’d be a lovely resource for people starting out and wondering where to begin, or for seasoned illustrators and artists to find new ideas and equipment.

The post Equipment: Pencils & Erasers appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

I’m very fond of these plants; that warm, mauve blue coupled with the glossy green leaves makes for a pretty garden plant.  It was a pleasure to spend time comparing the Lesser periwinkle, Vinca minor (a problematic invasive species in Sweden) with the Greater periwinkle, Vinca major.

Another appealing aspect of the Periwinkle species is that telling these two species apart isn’t nearly as tricky as some plants can be (see Comparing Hogweed Heracleum species, and Comparing Goldenrod species  for a taste of what I mean!)

Size

Lesser periwinkle is, as the name suggests, smaller than Greater periwinkle.  Although both have a spreading growth pattern, and put out vegetative stems, all aspects of the Lesser are a little smaller than that of Greater.  In both cases, these trailing stems help the plant colonise new areas, and can form pretty thick ground cover in ideal conditions.  This isn’t surprising, the trailing stems can be up to a meter long!

Lesser periwinkle, V. minor

Lesser periwinkle has one, (rarely two) flowers at each axil.  Greater periwinkle has up to 4.

Leaves

Lesser periwinkle leaves are around 4cm long, whilst those of the Greater periwinkle are almost twice the length, averaging 6cm length.  There’s a clear difference in leaf shape too.  Lesser periwinkle has elliptical leaves with a pointed tip.

Working on illustrating leaves of V. minor

Greater periwinkle leaves are heart-shaped (or cordate; for more on terminology of leaf shape check out my earlier blog).

Lesser vs Greater periwinkle leaves

The petiole, or leaf stalk is noticeably longer in Greater, up to 20mm.  Lesser periwinkle leaves lie far closer to the main stem, with petioles no longer than 3mm.

V. minor plant and illustration showing small leaves and short petioles

Finally, the leaves of the Greater periwinkle have tiny hairs at their base.  These are absent in the Lesser periwinkle.  I did spot these hairs, but it took some doing, and was an instant diagnostic.

I did have the challenge of only having a variegated species of Vinca minor to work with, disregarding the paler blotches can be quite tricky.

Stems

The stems of both plants look similar, being hairless and green, or flushed crimson.  However, Lesser periwinkle stems can root along their length, while Greater periwinkle tend only to root at the stem tips.

Lesser periwinkle showing roots along stem length (not only at tip)

Flowers

Lesser periwinkle flowers are smaller than those of its cousin.  They average 2.5cm across, whereas those of Greater periwinkle are around 5cm wide.  Both periwinkle species have five slightly unequal petals.

Lesser periwinkle flowers

There’s a difference in petal colour, too.  V. minor flowers are a paler and pinker blue, sometimes almost a lilac hue.  V. major flowers are a darker blue-purple.

Lesser vs Greater periwinkle flowers

I was incredibly lucky to find both periwinkle species in flower as I illustrated them, it would have been hard to get the colours right without the flowers right there.  The V. major flower was noticeably smaller than those blooming earlier in the summer, but as long as you’re aware of these seasonal differences you can compensate.

Obviously, it’s vital to keep specimens fresh as you draw them.  I rather enjoy the classy tone the Babycham glass gave to proceedings…

Classy reference

Calyx

The calyx is the outermost part of a flower, which is frequently green and often divided into sepals.  In the periwinkles, it helps differentiate between the species.

V. minor has a smaller calyx (0.5cm long) which is hairless, and has blunt tips.

Calyx of V. major are twice the size, and have pointy tips.  They are fringed with hairs which are absent in the Lesser periwinkle calyx.

Calyx of Lesser periwinkle vs Greater periwinkle

I’m not lying when I say spotting the differences in hair distribution, even under my dissecting microscope was a challenge.  But then I only had one or two calyx from each species to examine.  Looking for such distinctions is always easier when there’s a glut of fresh material to examine!

Conclusion

Before looking at these plants in detail, I didn’t even realise there were two species of periwinkle!  It’s lucky that telling them apart was so straight-forward, and that I managed to get my hands of live reference before autumn closed in.

So if you want to know if that plant in your garden is Lesser or Greater; look our for leaf shape and stalk length, flower size and colour, and get that hand lens out on the calyxes.

This unframed original illustration is available to buy for £125, if you’re interested do drop me a line on info@lizzieharper.co.uk.

The post Comparing Periwinkle Species appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Sketchbook study of the Common hop

Overview of Hop plants

Hops are members of the Cannabaceae family, and are native to the Northern hemisphere.  There are three species of hop, and any number of varieties of the Common hop.  This is due to the plant’s history in brewing beer; different varieties of common hop create different flavours.

Hops are climbers, supporting their spiralling growth on whatever comes to hand (well, to tendril).

Common hop tendril

Both plants get big, with 6 m in height being the average.  Japanese hop can grow up to 10 m in one growing season.  This depends on how high the substrate or support they’re twining around is.  If it’s a telegraph pole or tree, then the plant can get close to its maximum height.

Scale illustration of Japanese hop with grown man of 180 cm

Stems

Both these species are vigorous climbers, aided by their spiny twining stems.  They are perennial climbers, sometimes referred to as bines.

Their stems are non-woody and have four sides, with backward pointing prickles that help the plants to climb in a clockwise direction.  (Interestingly, bines which grow anticlockwise, such as Virginia creeper, use suckers and tendrils rather than spines.)

However, the Japanese hop has hairs on its stem alongside the spines; in Common hop these are absent.

Japanese hop vs Common hop stems

Shoots grow at a prodigious rate, the Common hop can grow 20 – 50 cm a week in summer.  These shoots are edible, and a tasty edition to salads or eaten as a green vegetable.

Japanese hop seedling

They have lobed leaves which grow in opposite pairs, and as male and female flowers are borne on different plants, they’re dioecious.

Leaves

Japanese and Common hop have lobed leaves; Common hop leaves are a little smaller than those of the Japanese hop, being 5 – 13 cm instead of 10 – 15 cm.  They’re both rough to the touch.  Common hop leaves are more or less glabrous above and have downy hair that follows the lines of the veins below.  They also have little yellow glands on the underside.  Japanese hop leaves are described as finely hairy, with minute hooked bristles on the upper and lower leaf surface.  The glands on the underside of their leaves are white.

Both species have lobes.  Common hop have three to five lobes, although most have three.  Japanese hop leaves have three to seven lobes.  Most leaves have five, but leaves toward the top of the plant may have only three.

Japanese hop leaf vs Common hop leaf

The teeth on the margins of Common hop are blunt, while those of Japanese hop are pointier.

Although the leaf stalk or petiole is long in both species, it’s generally longer in the Japanese hop.  In fact, it’s longer than the leaf blade itself.  Common hop stipules are far shorter than the leaf blade.  Some sources suggest that the stipule at the petiole base can be used to tell the two species apart.  Common hop stipules are smaller, hairless, and drop off pretty soon.  They split before being shed.  Those of the Japanese hop curve downward, are triangular and persistent, and are covered in hairs.

Male flowers

Being dioceious, male and female flowers are borne on different plants.  As it’s the female flowers of the Common hop that produce what we consider “hops”, they’re the plants that have been encouraged over the years.  In fact, male Common hops were prohibited in Ireland under the Noxious weeds act of 1965.

Male flowers of both species look similar and are borne in loose-branching clusters.  Those of Common hop are borne on drooping branches with clusters of 20 – 100 flowers, while those of the Japanese hop are said to be held erect.  Again, it’s a cluster of 20 – 100 flowers.  Both have five spreading sepals, and five stamens.  These are pale yellow with darker yellow glands in the case of Common hop. The sepals of the Japanese hop are hairy, those of the Common hop are not.

Male flower of the Japanese hop

Female flowers

Female plants can be propagated with vegetative reproduction.

Male hops were discouraged as if the hop plant produced seeds, the fatty acids within the seeds could alter the flavour of the hops and thus distort the brewing process.

Japanese hop seed

Female flowers are pistillate, having no stamens, with 2 thread-like styles.  They’re borne in cone-like spikes which appear at the top pf branches that grow from the leaf axils.  There are a few to several flowers per cluster.  The female flowers lack petals, and each is surrounded by a green bract.

Female flower of the Common hop (without basal bracts)

Female Common hop flowers have 10 – 50 pairs of flowers per cluster, and each pair of flowers has a glabrous pale green bract at its base, with a blunt tip and yellow glands at its base.  The bracts of Japanese hop are more pointed, and covered in sparse white hairs.

Maturing female flower of the Common hop

Fruit

The fruit of the Common hop is the part used in brewing beer.  They’re called strobilus (plural strobili) meaning cone.  If you look at one next to a pine cone, this makes sense.

Common hop strobili are pale green, papery, and up to 3cm in length.  They are hairless and each bract is blunt.

Simplifies illustration on Common hop strobili

Japanese hop strobili are a darker, bright green.  They’re hairy, with most hairs at the base of each bract.  The bract tips are acuminate.

When seen together, the difference between the two species is clear.

Japanese female cone or strobili vs Common hop strobili

I mentioned the number of seeds per bract; as stated earlier, hops used in the brewing industry are barren.

Conclusion

My main problem researching the hops is not the difference between these two species.  That’s easy enough; the leaves and stems are very different, as are the strobili.  No.  My main challenge was getting my head round the structure of the monoecious hop inflorescence, and understanding what structures were present (or were not) in each.

There were many rabbit-holes that I fell down whilst researching this blog.  Did you know that until 1915, in Finland, peasants had to provide Common hop as part of their annual tax bill?  Or that Common hop plants which germinated 8,000 years ago still have ancestors twining around alder trees?  (Both of these facts are from the excellent Natures Gate site).

The varieties of Common hop, some lost and some saved from the brink of extinction, are numerous and fascinating.

The uses of hop are numerous, not only for weaving tough fabric and brewing beer; but for making dye, medicine, and for their anti-bacterial properties.  Hops have been used to treat anxiety and sleep disorder, and to froth up beer, as well as to flavour it.

I love how one plant can open a hundred doorways.

Pencil rough of the Japanese hop

Resources

Lots of great online resources helped me here.  The Midwest Invasive Species Network, Minnisota Wildflowers has excellent pages on Common and Japanese hop, The Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health has lots of images for Japanese and Common hop; and there’s a rather lovely blog about the hops growing at the Met museum’s Cloister gardens.

These original illustrations are mostly available to buy.  Have a browse in the Original unframed sketchbook illustrations and Original unframed plant illustrations section of my website, using the search facility.

The post Comparing Common and Japanese Hops appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Overview of Canadian Goldenrod Solidago canadensis and Early Goldenrod Solidago gigantea

The focus of the illustration is the Canadian goldenrod.

Most Goldenrods are native to the Americas.  However, there’s one species native to Europe (Woundwort Solidago virgaurea).

Both Canadian and Early Goldenrod Solidago gigantea grow wild in Scandanavia.  Garden escapes were noted as early as 1910.  Although it’s an invasive, and can be a nuisance, Goldenrod does bring benefits.  It’s extremely good for pollinators, and attracts lots of butterflies.  As it flowers late in the year, it provides a welcome food supply for insects about to overwinter.  (To make your garden wildlife friendly, check out the Save the Bees guest blog.)

Goldenrod plants grows on waste ground.  Sometimes they form dense clumps along railway tracks and roads.

Canadian goldenrod flowers August to October.  However, Early goldenrod blooms from July.

Goldenrod is a member of the daisy or Compositae family.  As with other members of this large and successful group, its flowers are made of disc and ray florets.  For more on this, please check out my blog.

Canadian goldenrod

The Canadian goldenrod plant is tall, 30 – 150 cm.  Densely leafy, it’s covered in downy hairs which are more obvious toward the top of the plant.  Giant or Early goldenrod is glabrous.  It’s a larger plant, up to 250 cm high.  Often, its stems are blueish towards the base.

The plant reproduces by means of far-reaching rhizomes, and with seeds.  These have fluffy pappas which catch the wind and spread the seed widely.

Leaves

Canadian goldenrod leaves are alternate and toothed.  About 2/3 of the way down the leaf edge the teeth give over to leave a smooth margin toward the base.  As with the rest of the plant, they’re hairy.

Early goldenrod has teeth which carry round the entire margin of the leaf.  Any hairs follow the lines of the veins.

Early goldenrod and Canadian goldenrod leaf comparison

Canadian goldenrod leaves have three veins; while the Early goldenrod sports five.

Stems

The stem of Canadian goldenrod is covered in downy hairs.  It is often flushed red.  Stems of the Early goldenrod are hairless, and may be flushed red or a more intense purple.

Early goldenrod stem compared to Canadian goldenrod stem

Flowering spike

The flowering spike is similar in both species.  It carries lots of golden flowers, and tends to curve a little.

Canadian goldenrod with comparative notes on Early goldenrod

Individual flowers

Each individual flower is composed of ray florets around the outside edge, and disc florets within.  Both have 5 yellow stamen.  There are some noticeable differences between these golden blooms.

The Canadian goldenrod is 5 – 6 mm across and has 10 – 17 short ray florets per flower.  Tips of each are blunt, and rounded.  In shape, the capitulum is domed.  Flowers are carried in wide, pyramid-like panicles.

With the Early goldenrod, there are fewer ray florets per flower, 7 – 12 of them.  Each flower is a smaller 2 – 3 mm.  Ligules of the ray florets are significantly longer, with more pointed tips.  Another differnce is the capitulum, which are are more pyramidal than in Canadian goldenrod.  The flowering branches tend to be straighter and held more erect.  Branches may be slightly hairy towards their top.

Early goldenrod flowers compared to Canadian goldenrod flowers

Seeds

These are similar in both species, but the Early goldenrod has longer pappas.  Canadian goldenrod seeds have a slightly downy tip.

Currently in Sweden and Finland the cold weather comes before the Early goldenrod sets seed.  As global warming leads to longer summers this plant could become an increasingly problematic invasive in Scandinavia.

Early goldenrod cypsela vs that of the Canadian goldenrod

Resources

Naturespot has helpful and concise information on the Canadian goldenrod and on the Early goldenrod.  Yet again, Naturegate has great pages for both Canadian and Giant goldenrod.

This original sketchbook illustration is available for sale along with many other original illustrations.  Why not have a browse at Original Illustrations for sale?

The post Comparing Goldenrod Species 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

The post Garden Lupin Sketchbook study appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Project overview

There are eleven plants in total, and each species needed certain aspects illustrating.  In all cases I need to supply an image of the plant, details of leaves and flowers, and a habit drawing with a person for scale.  With plants where disambiguation was an issue, there also has to be precise images that show differences between similar species.

Small balsam Impatiens parviflora

Research

The hardest part of this project is finding the right reference.  In the middle of winter (when I worked on this project), there’s no chance of finding so much as a lone leaf growing.   I rely heavily on photo reference.  Some of the species on the list are not plants I’m familiar with (such as the Persian Hogweed), and I find myself entering Swedish plant names as I quest for the perfect image.

Persian Hogweed Heracleum persicum

Species Illustrated

I won’t go into the trials and tribulations presented by each plant here. The learning curve is steep and I learn a lot, fast.  The trickiest element is finding ways to show comparisons between similar species.  How do you put two stems, two flowers, a habit drawing, and a leaf outline of two plants onto one sheet of A3 paper?  There’s a lot of work relating to composition, and numerous sheets of scrap paper get covered in thumbnail composition sketches.  (Lots of my blogs, such as the one on Winter Jasmine include information and examples of doing such thumbnails).

Canadian Goldenrod Solidago canadensis pencil Rough

Approach to illustrations

The client wants sketchbook style illustrations, which is an approach I really enjoy.  I add enough information to give an understanding of the plant.  I avoid creating a finished and polished botanical illustration of each plant.

The focus is a line drawing of the whole plant, with a few leaves illustrated in full watercolour.  There’ll often be a graphite study of a leaf.  I might include a line drawing (in paint or graphite) of the leaf venation.  Other details, such as cross sections of flowers or information on fruits, will go around the central image.

Exploded seed pod and seeds of Small Balsam Impatiens parviflora

The species comparisons also go around the central image.  Below is an image of the Goldenrod sheet as a whole.

Canadian Goldenrod Solidago canadensis sketchbook sheet

And here’s a close-up of a comparison between the flowers of two similar species of Goldenrod flowers (seen in the top left of the larger sheet).

Comparison of Goldenrod Solidago species flowers

These sketchbook studies have an immediacy that pleases me.  I love the luxury of being able to be a little more experimental in what I include, leave out, or merely hint at.

Milkweed Asclepias syriaca showing how you can merely suggest leaves with a sketchbook study

Showcase of illustrations

Below is a selection of the finished illustrations.  My favourite is the lupin because it’s so unusual to be given a bright blue flower it work on.  The one I enjoyed least was the Tree of Heaven – painting dark glossy leaves is tough and getting the bark details right was a challenge.

Skunk cabbage sketchbook illustration

Lupin Lupinus polyphyllus sketchbook illustration

Japanese Rose Rosa rugosa sketchbook study

Japanese Hop Humulus japonicus sketchbook illustration

Tree of Heaven Ailanthus altissima sketchbook illustration

Re-use of existing illustrations

I’m vigorous in hanging onto my copyright when I work, and this job is yet another example of why it pays off.  (For more on this, look at my blog on doing the illustrations for Flora Margarine).  Several of the plants on FOR’s list were one’s I’d already illustrated.  The Himalayan balsam and Japanese Knotweed were done years ago for Gridline Magazine.  Further details of Japanese Knotweed was completed for “Unearthing the Truth” by Nicolas Seal.  The Japanese rose had been illustrated for “The Garden Forager” by Adele Nozedar.

All of these images needed supplementary details illustrating; seed pods, seedlings, stands of the plant in winter.  However, the Japanese Rose needed a complete re-draw.  However, this not only made the job speedier to deliver, but also saved the client on costs.

Scale Drawings

I’m alright at illustrating plants.  Becasue I’m used to it I know how to make the illustrations work out well.  The same can not be said of my attempts to illustrate people.  So there’s a mental block there that means any time I try to illustrate someone’s face, things go wrong.

The brief calls for scale habit drawings, using a person to show comparative sizes of the plants.

I use my long suffering husband as my “person”, and try to paint his face.  Certainly, I have to tweak it on Photoshop, and the finished product doesn’t look great.  Providing the person as a pen and ink line drawing, and in full colour gives the client options.

Although the figure illustrations aren’t a success, the information they convey about plant size is helpful.

Conclusion

Thanks to re-using illustrations and clear directions from the client I finish the commission ahead of schedule.

I’m paid, and learn new facts about plants I’ve not illustrated before.  I have a whole new batch of original illustrations which I can sell via my online gallery.  (Just enter the plant name into the search box).  And I remember how fortunate I am to have a job which I adore.

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