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.

This sketchbook study was completed for FOR Sweden, and is one of a series of 12 invasive species illustrated.

As mentioned in the last blog; this is one of a whole clutch of blogs I’ve written on how to illustrate roses.  You can check out another one on painting this species, one on illustrating a dog rose, and one on doing a sketchbook study of a pretty peach rose for The Garden Forager by Adele Nozedar.

Illustration with completed leaves, awaiting illustration of the flower

Materials

You need to have your art materials and a few rose flowers ready.  If the rose isn’t in season, either use a whole range of photo reference, or wait til it blooms!  My botanical illustrations are always completed on hot press watercolour paper, in this case Stonehenge Aqua by Legion Papers.  Mechanical pencils create a good crisp line for drawing up the plant, I favour the Pentel P205.  The watercolours I use most are Winsor and Newton pans, although I’ve also used a some Ultramarine violet from a tube of Daniel Smith watercolors for this illustration.  I mix a few drops of the very vivid pink (Quinacridine magenta) Doctor Martin’s Hydrous watercolour ink in with my rose hues, and always use a size 1 and 000 Series 7 sable brushes by Winsor and Newton.

Draw up the Rose

In this case, we’re returning to an illustration we’re already working on.  However, you could just as easily take a pencil and draw a line drawing of the flower direct onto the hotpress watercolour paper.  Keep a light touch and precise, atonal lines.

Starting out on the petals

The first step is to mix up a good magenta.  The hue of the Japanese rose is very distinctive, and is quite a blue-pink.  I used plenty of Winsor and Newton (W&N) Opera rose, a touch of Daniel Smith (DS) Ultramarine violet, some W&N Permanent rose, some W&N Cobalt blue, and a tiny bit of W&N Quinacrodine violet.  To add an extra kick, I put in a drop or two of Doctor Martin’s Quinacridine magenta hydrus ink.

It’s all rather experimental, mixing hues.  I keep written notes of what I’m adding and go on mixing until the colour matches the petal.  Sometimes I paint a tiny drop of the mix onto the petal itself to see how close of a match it is; this is ridiculous in truth as paint dries a different colour and appears differently on the substrate of white paper.  I like to think it’s a good pointer, though.

Following the lines of growth on each petal, and painting outward towards the outer edges, I start to build up colour.

Make sure to leave plenty of white paper.  With watercolour, the white page provides you with the colour white, and with your highlights.  Swallow these up with colour at your peril.

One petal has the first layer of colour applied

A close up of the petal shows that the colour is made of lots of tiny lines.  To get this crisp effect, the paint has to be pretty thick; probably similar to the consistency of cream.

Close up of the petal

Working around the petals of the Japanese Rose

Move from one petal to the next, being sure you don’t lean your hand on anything you’ve just illustrated.  A piece of scrap paper under your painting hand helps avoid dirtying the rest of the sheet of watercolour paper and allows you to focus on the area you’re concentrating on.

Working around all five petals of the rose

By following the lines of growth, and by anchoring your lines at the outside edge of the petal you’re echoing the structure of the flower, and adding movement to the illustration.  It also makes the outer edges of the petal darker, which helps the eye find and settle on the exterior of the flower.

Top wash

Next, I dilute the pink hue with clean water.  Water is the best way to make a tint, or paler version of a hue.  It makes the colour paler and lighter but doesn’t muddy it with white pigment.  The paint used here is really quite watery, and is applied over the top of the areas of petal already painted.  As with the leaves, extend this paler area further in to the white highlights on the page.  This makes the juxtaposition between colour and white paper softer, and more realistic.

This layer is applied as before, with parallel tiny brush strokes which follow the line of petal growth.

Close up showing the top wash on the top petal

Work your way around the petals, being sure not to smudge your work.  Don’t swallow up the white of the page entirely, it provides highlights and gives life to the illustration.

Flower with all five petals complete with top wash.

Be brave about when to stop working on the petals

With many flowers, I’d do another paler dilution of the colour, and gently apply this over the entire flower.  This can make a flower glow, but can also stifle its delicacy.

In an earlier illustration of a Japanese Rose (below), this top wash slightly compromised the illustration.  It was needed, as the illustration had to be complete and polished, but with this sketchbook study I chose to relax and not add a third layer of colour.

Illustrating the Stamens and Stigma

Look closely at the centre of the rose.  You’ve already drawn all the stamens with their anthers, and can see the top of the stigma.  Mix up colours that match what you see.  For the anthers I used W&N Cadmium yellow, outlines with Cadmium yellow and a touch or Cadmium orange.  The filaments are the same yellow, but with a dash of green.

The hue of the stigma is a colder and greener yellow than the anthers.  W&N Winsor Lemon works well, with an outlying circle of the same colour mixed with sap green.

For more on the anatomy of roses have a look at my earlier blog on the structure of rosehips, or this simple guide from Texas A&M University.

Japanese rose with stamens and stigma coloured in

Working into the shadows

The last thing to do is to mix up a good colour for shadows, and to pop some of these in.  I tend to use W&N Cobalt blue and a purple, and love the crispness a good drop shadow can give.

I also like to add a few tiny brush strokes of this watery, darker hue to the external edges of the petals.  it seems to help provide focus to the illustration.

A little more judicious use of shadow around the stamens brings the illustration together.  It’s finished.

Completed Japanese Rose sketchbook illustration

For a film of me working into this rose illustration in real time, and explaining what I’m doing as I paint, please take a look at my Youtube film:

For a blog on my sketchbook illustrations click here.

Conclusion

I always paint the flower after the foliage in the same way as I leave the tastiest bit of a meal until the end.  It’s the treat to reward me for the hard work that goes into navigating those seas of green.

It’s not just that doing botanical illustrations of flowers like this Japanese rose is more fun than working on the leaves (although that’s true), it’s also easier.  Tracing the patterns of lights and darks is simpler as the structure is less complex.  The colours are a whole lot of fun to mix and work with.  And there’s something infinitely satisfying about sitting back after completing a decent day’s work, and seeing the flower you just illustrated glowing on the page.

Completed sketchbook study sheet for the Japanese Rose

The post Botanical Illustration of a Japanese Rose appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Materials

First, assemble your materials.  You need a few roses with leaves, and art equipment.  I always do my botanical illustrations on hot press watercolour paper, in this case Stonehenge Aqua by Legion Papers.  I use a mechanical pencil to draw up the plant, and favour the Pentel P205.  Watercolours are Winsor and Newton pans, although I’ve also used some Daniel Smith tubes for this illustration.  I add a kick of colour to the flower by mixing in a pink Doctor Martin’s Hydrous watercolour ink, and always use Series 7 sable brushes by Winsor and Newton (a size 1).

Draw up the Rose and rose leaves

It’s always worth taking a good look at your subject before you start to draw it.  Rose leaves are actually made of leaflets; one at the tip and a series of paired leaflets below.  The Japanese Rose leaves are glossy, wrinkled when young, and have toothed margins.  In fact the scientific name for this rose, Rosa rugosa, translates as “Wrinkled rose” which refers to the rough and folded nature of the young leaves.

Using clear and light pencil lines, I draw up the plant onto my hot press watercolour paper.

Line drawing of the Japanese Rose, focusing on the leaves

Adding the mid-tones

I work unconventionally in that I put in my mid-tones first.  Traditionally in botanical illustration, one works from light to dark, creating a layered effect.  Although I sometimes wish I did work this way, I always find and plot in the shapes of the darker areas of each leaf first.

The green colour used is Daniel Smith Spring Green, plus Daniel Smith (DS) Cobalt Turquoise.  There’s also some Winsor and Newton (W&N) purple, cobalt blue, and yellow ochre in there.

Shapes of mid-tones painted

I try to look for edges in these areas of shadow, and for patterns.  If there’s a dark shadow next to the leaf midrib, then it’s likely this will be consistent down the whole length of the leaflet.  There’s often a difference in shadow to be seen from one side of a leaf to another; this relates to how the light hits the leaf blade and interacts with the veins.

Traditionally, the light source comes from behind the left shoulder and I tend to stick with this.

In the image below, you can see how just plotting in these shapes and areas of dark give structure and tonality to the leaf, even at this early stage.

Three leaflets with mid-tones plotted in

Suggesting other Rose Leaves

This is a sketchbook study, so doesn’t have to be a polished finished illustration.  Instead of illustrating each leaflet in painstaking detail, I can use a wet wash to plot in extra leaves.  I apply this colour (a mix of W&N yellow ochre, sap green, and DS Cobalt turquoise) very wet and allow it to dry fully.

I leave the main lateral leaf veins and the midribs as white for now; they’ll get knocked back later on.

Midtones of leaves plotted in, with wash suggesting the leaves behind

Working into the Rose Leaves

Once fully dry, I work into the edges of the areas of mid-tone.  I use the same colours as before but add a little more W&N yellow ochre, some W&N cadmium yellow light, and more water.  With watercolour, the water itself acts as a diluting agent and allows you to mix paler tints of a colour.

This process knocks the stark edges off the shadows, and I paint over the dark areas with the new mix as well as the edges of each shape.  In a way, you’re plotting a concentric circle of a slightly paler green around the edge of each shape of shadow.

Be careful not to cover all the white of the page.  White paper represents the palest light areas in a watercolour, so if you cover it all up with paint then the whole painting will end up dark and rather lifeless.  You can always make an illustration darker, but it’s almost impossible to lighten a watercolour.  Believe me, I’ve spent years trying to find easy ways to do exactly that!

First paler wash goes onto the leaflets on the left

I tend to do all the leaves with each layer of colour.  So I’ll pop this first gentler wash on all the leaflets, and allow them to fully dry before moving onto the next layer of colour.

The third layer is yet paler; more dilute and with more yellow in the mix.  Again, it’s the concentric circle method that gets used; the paint getting paler as you move out from those initial mid-tone shapes.  Still leave whites on the page.  Allow this to dry fully.

The fourth layer (oh yes) is very dilute and pale.  It’s really more like tinted water; W&N yellow ochre and DS Spring green.  This time, cover the entire leaf including the leaf veins and areas of highlight, but keep it a pale colour.  Never use white to try and make a watercolour hue lighter, it tends to result in a muddy mess.

Leaflets almost all covered with four layers of paint

Working into the shadows of the Rose leaves

Once the paint is totally dry (there’s a pattern here…), you can start working into the shadows.

I use a mix of W&N cobalt blue and purple, and just pick out the darkest parts of each area of shadow.  You need to look at the leaves all the time to do this, when you try and work without reference it starts to look odd.  In many ways, working from life is much easier than working from pictures, but it’s very punishing if you lose concentration and start making things up instead of sticking to direct observation.

I also tend to sharpen up the edges of the teeth of the leaf margin, and any areas where one leaf abuts another.  I also have a close look at the mid rib as this often casts deep shadows onto one side of a leaf.  The paint is thicker than the washes we’ve just been using; similar in viscosity to the very first green we mixed, it’s almost like the texture of cream.

Be careful not to overdo the shadows, you’re using them to make the contrast in each leaf stand out; not to swallow up the nuances of tone.

Illustration showing the leaves with shadows picked out

At this point, the leaves of your rose are completed and it’s time to move onto illustrating the rose.

To see this process of painting rose leaves in real time, with me talking through the processes (and other things which may or may not be relevant!) please have a look at my Youtube video:

Once the rest of the plant is painted, you may well find you need to return to the leaves.

Tweaking the Rose leaves once the rest of the plant is illustrated

Adding different elements to an illustration invariably changes the tonal weight and may result in you needing to put in more shadows.

In this case, once the rose was illustrated (sister blog here), there was a need to make it stand out even more dramatically from the leaves behind it.

The shadow is yet again a mix of W&N cobalt blue and purple.  Looking closely at the specimen or reference, and remembering that your light source comes from behind the left shoulder, paint in your drop shadows.  Here, the petals cast shadows onto the leaflets on the right hand side, and the leaflets on the left cast a crisp-edged shadow onto the petals.

Completed sketchbook study of Rose and rose leaves (detail)

Conclusion

You’ll find that seeing the lights and darks in a subject gets easier over time, as you get your eye in.  Drawing the plant will get easier too; and don’t beat yourself up if you find it hard.  Transforming a 3D object like a plant to a flat 2D image is quite a challenge, and looking closely at a subject can be totally exhausting (and absorbing).

 As with anything, the more you do it, the quicker and simper it becomes.  And this is important because it truly is these tonal differences which make or break an illustration.  Too much dark and it’s swallowed up.  Not enough sharp contrast and the whole thing looks weak and floppy.  It’s a matter of respecting the white of the paper, and having the courage to work into the shadows.  With those two elements sorted out, you’re well on the way to creating decent botanical illustrations of whatever subject you choose.

Finished sketchbook illustration with art materials.

The post Botanical Illustration of Rose Leaves appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Actually, before I start this blog I need to clarify the title, “Botanical Illustration of a Brassica leaf”.  The leaf I’m discussing is that of a Yellow Mustard plant, Brassica juncea, a species of Brassica.

The colours of Brassica leaves are very similar across many members of the family.  The Brassicaceae or Cabbage family is large and encompasses lots of our common crop plants; turnip, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, radish, oil-seed rape, kale, collards, brussels sprouts, mustards….  All Brassicas have distinctive four-petalled cruciferous flowers which have two long and two short stamens.  Petals are often white or yellow.  The seeds are borne in long pods called siliques.  (For more on different types of fruit, check out my earlier blog).

Diagram of a silique

Brassica Leaves

I’m working on a series of crop plants for a German client, and I found I kept using the same mixes of colour for the leaves.  Turnips, oil-seed rape, radish, mustards…  All are slightly different in their precise shade of green, but the glaucous, blueish and powdery look and feel to the leaves is distinctive.

So how do you approach this colour?  First thing is to look very closely at the leaf, and spend time mixing your watercolour.  I use Winsor and Newton pans, topped up from the tube when they run low. I begin with a cerulean blue.  Add some Yellow ochre, the a tiny dash of Viridian.  Some Cobalt blue is handy, and so is a dash of a purple.  The finishing touch to this glaucous mix is a tiny dab of white ink (I use Doctor Martin’s).  This helps to nail the paleness of the leaf, and makes it feel slightly powdery.

Choice of brush and paper is important too.  I always use a number 1 size Winsor and Newton Series 7 sable brush, and my current favourite paper is Stonehenge Aqua (hot Press).

Brassica leaf

Technique

As always, I pick out my darks first with my initial colour mix, and then layer a slightly lighter green on top once it’s dry.  This colour will have a bit more yellow ochre in, and be more dilute.  Once this dries I apply a third wash over all the leaf (except on the veins which remain unpainted and white).  This is more dilute, and has yet more yellow ochre in.

Once this is dry I put a very watery wash over the entire leaf (including the veins).  This is mostly yellow ochre, with a touch of a blue-green.  Apply it really wet and allow it to dry completely before the next step.

Next, and unusually for me, I added a second wet wash over the whole lot.  This is where the Brassica leaf colours started to look realistic.  I mixed cobalt blue and cerulean blue with a whole lot of water and applied it across the whole leaf, very wet.  This made the entire leaf much bluer, and also has the added benefit of crisping up the edges of the leaves, where the paint pools and dries.  I love the sharp edges you get with wet watercolour once it’s dried, and am trying to use them more and more in my illustrations.

Painting a shadow

Shadows on Glaucous leaves

I often use purples for leaf shadows, and this works really well on the soft chalky blue-greens of a brassica leaf.

The somewhat blurry photo above shows me working into the darkest corners of a leaf with a watery mix of Cobalt blue and purple.  I picked out the edges of the veins with yellow ochre plus a touch of purple (a slightly brown grey, in effect).

I repeated this across the plant until the leaves were all completed.  In the picture below you can see how the yellow and blue washes have added large zones of colour and depth to the leaves.

Yellow mustard plant with leaves completed

Stems and the silique

Stems are easy.  Mix a pale green that reflects the colour of the plant you’re illustrating.  Paint a thick line down one side of the stem (for me this tends to be the right hand side as I favour a light source coming from the top left), and a thin one down the other.  Let them dry, then dilute your pale green and pop this top wash over the stem.  Done.  You may want to add shadows later, you may not need to.

Detailed close up of a stem being outlined

Approach the silique in a similar manner, but with a pale mix of yellow ochre and Van dyke brown (or whatever colours best capture the plant in front of you).  A wet top wash gives it colour and bulk.

Painting the tip of the silique fruiting capsule or pod

Painting the flowers

Once the stems, brassica leaves and siliques are done, you can treat yourself by doing the pretty yellow flowers.

Mixing this colour is very straight-forward.  Cadmium yellow light plus some of that Dr Martin’s Hydrus white watercolour.  Perhaps a tiny dab og green.

Pick out the darks, let them dry, then apply a dilute top wash.

Stamens and shadows come next.

Mixing white ink into Cadmium yellow light

Finishing Touches

Finally, I re-visit the whole of the plant with my trusty purple-blue shadow mix.  I use a more neutral shade for the yellow flowers (see my blog for more on Mixing neutral tints).  Make sure the plant balances, and that the shadows make sense.  Then that’s it, finished!

Completed botanical illustration of the Yellow Mustard Brassica juncea complete with blue-ish leaves.

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

Demonstration illustration showing different steps involved in painting a blackberry leaf.  There’s also a breakdown of the colours used to mix the greens that I used for each step.

I thought it might be worth deconstructing and explaining the processes in a blog.  The illustrations below are magnified, and so are a little out of focus.  My apologies.

Explanation of my process

It  needs to be pointed out that the way I use watercolour to illustrate leaves is not true to the methods used by many botanical illustrators.  There are various norms that I seem not to adhere to.  For example, you’re never advised to mix more than three colours together for one mix.   Most illustrators work from light to dark, not dark to light as I do.  With these caveats in mind, I thought I’d still go ahead and show the processes I use.  Just remember,  they are a little renegade.  I don not think my approach would gain universal approval or acceptance.

Draw the leaf properly

First step is to draw the leaf making certain that the shape, leaf margin, and position of the most visible side and lateral veins is correct.  I do this in atonal pencil, mostly with an 0.5 or 0.3mm propelling HB pencil (such as the reliably good Pentel P205).

I draw directly onto hotpress watercolour paper, everyone has their favourite, I like Fabriano Artistico or Fabriano Classico best.

Mixing greens

I then closely examine the leaf and mix up a green that matches the leaf blade.  (More on mixing greens can be found in my blog).  I test the colour by applying a spot of it to the leaf itself.   I plot in the shapes of the darkest shadows with my Winsor & Newton series 7 brush (choosing a number 1 or  0).

I use my trusty watercolour box.  It’s a mix of Winsor and Newton and Daler Rowney pans.  Colours that get used repeatedly in mixing of greens include: yellow ochre, cadmium yellow light and dark, cobalt blue, winsor blue, ultramarine, cereleun, vandyke brown, violet, sap green, hookers green, viridian, and chromium of oxide green.

I never use a ready-made green without mixing it with other colours.  The colours straight from the pan are nothing like the greens found in nature.

Step 1: Paint in your darkest shadows

I use a mix of cereleun, burnt umber, yellow ochre, and sap green.

A more dilute version of the same colour is used to soften the edges of these blocks.   You can see this on the lowest part of the leaf above.  It’s vital to leave plenty of white, and not to swamp the paper with colour.  With watercolour it’s always possible to make a colour darker, but almost impossible to lighten it.  Trying to often makes the area look muddy.

Next, I mix up a mid-tone green and apply this to the flat areas of the leaf.  These are areas which are not caught in the bright highlights nor swallowed by the darker shadowed parts.  For this blackberry leaf, this was a mix of sap green and cadmium yellow pale.

Again, it’s vital to leave the white of the page.

Step two: Working into the midtones with a lighter and yellower green

I tend to leave the veins white.  They are often yellower and paler than the leaf blade.  If not, they may be a very different colour such as crimson or purple.

Next is a third mix, far paler and more dilute than the others.  This knocks the stark edges off the white highlighted regions of the leaf.  In this example I also apply this wash to the veins which are a yellowish green colour.  The mix is composed of a lot of water and sap green with lemon yellow.

I also cover some of the remaining areas of white with this pale shade.  This helps the palest regions of the leaf stand out.  It also adds some shape to the leaf.  The areas closet to the veins tend to receive this treatment as they are often marginally darker than the central highlights between lateral veins.

Next, I’ll mix up quite a thick dark colour and pick out the deepest areas of shade with the tip of my paintbrush.  This mix often features browns, purples, and blue.  It needs to be added very carefully to avoid swamping the greens.  For this bramble leaf it was a mix of sap green, burnt umber, winsor blue, and purple.

Step three and four: Applying a very pale yellow-green wash, and working into the darkest shadows.

The final step is to put a very very dilute and pale overwash across the entire painting.  You can see this in the lowest area of the blackberry leaf.  Frequently this will be yellow ochre with lots of water.  In this case it was yellow ochre, lemon yellow and plenty of water,.

This last wash tends to help unify the gradations and colours of the leaf.  Yet it is pale and light enough not to compromise the white of the paper which still remains.  This paper shows the highlights on the leaf blade.

The left hand side of the leaf below shows the whole process in play; it was done as a demonstration for students so is far from perfect.   However, it shows how the steps described look on a larger segment of a leaf.  This is the same piece, but for some reason this scan is brighter and yellower than the others.

Blackberry leaf with breakdown of steps on the right, and a segment fully painted on the left.

Showing this approach in context

This page of studies of the Hazel shows a graphite study of the lights and darks on a hazel leaf, and a leaf painted according to the methods described above

Sketchbook study of the Hazel Coryllus avellana

Leaves with less stark areas of light and dark

Not all leaves have such sharp distinctions between areas of light and dark, and in these cases a more gradual and smoother gradient of shadow is required.  The processes used, however, remain true to the steps explained above.  There’s just a gentler approach to the edges of areas of colour (as shown in this study of a Dandelion leaf).

Dandelion Taraxicum officinale leaf showing smoother transition between areas of light and dark on the leaf blade.

Using this technique with all my botanical illustrations

Whether the illustration is for a sketchbook study where I’m gathering reference, simply painting for the joy of it; or whether it’s for a commission for a client, the plotting in of darks, tackling midtones, tweaking the darkest shadows and then unifying the entire leaf with a pale overwash remain a constant.  They’re pretty evident in this finished illustration of the Hazel done for a Field Studies Council identification chart.

Hazel illustration

As I mentioned, this approach to botanical illustration seems rather different from many traditional approaches, and I wouldn’t for one moment reccomend it above techniques which have been tried and tested for centuries.  I just wanted to present a detailed deconstruction of the processes I use to illustrate the beautiful and gloriously diverse leaves which are all around us, in the hope that they may be of use to someone out there, somewhere…

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