Materials

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

Pencil drawing

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

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

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

Pencil drawing of the Great burnet plant

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

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

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

Colour mix for the details of the leaves

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

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

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

One side of each leaflet is painted

Step 2: Paint the other side of each leaflet

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

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

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

Detail with both sides of the leaflets painted in

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

Completed plant with the details of all leaflets plotted in

Detail of Completed leaflet details

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

In all cases, I keep the central vein white.

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

Detail of two leaflets and a terminal leaflet, plotted in

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

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

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

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

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

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

Applying the top wash to one side of each leaflet

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

Close up of two leaves with wet top wash drying

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

Whole plant with first wash drying

Step 4: Second wash on leaves

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

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

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

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

Detail of one leaf with second colour wash drying

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

Whole plant with second colour wash drying

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

Step 5: Picking out the darks

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

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

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

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

Working into the darks near the centre of the leaf rosette

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

Detail of leaves once the darkest darks have been picked out

Step 6: Stems

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting the stems and handling the angled, cut stem

Step 7: Outlining the flowers

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

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

Colour of the flowers: Purple, orange, pinkish reds

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

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

Having outlined each flower, plot in the spaces between them

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

Entire illustration with the flowering heads plotted in

Step 8: Add colour to the flowers

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

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

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

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

Working into the petal colour

Let the paint dry fully.

Step 9: Add a Pink top wash to the flowers

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

Great burnet flowering head with top wash of pink applied

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

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

Step 10: Finish the flowers, then finish the painting

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

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

Adding the anthers

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

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

Completed illustration with paints and references

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

And there you have it…finished!

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

Completed Great Burnet illustration

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

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

Learning about Orchids

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

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

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

Diagram of a Pollinia and within an orchid flower

Orchid Reproduction

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

Orchid bee Euglossa cybelia with Cycnoches guttulatum orchid

Pencil roughs and alterations

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

Pencil rough with feedback

Materials

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

Leaves

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

Common spotted orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsii

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

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

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

Roots

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

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

Stem

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

Flowers

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

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

Flowers vs Bracts

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

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

Once dry, I add more red to the bracts.

Flowers: The Labellum

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

Flowers in their entirety

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

As always, colours are allowed to completely dry.

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

Early Marsh Orchid Dactylorhiza incarnata ssp coccinea

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

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

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

Early Marsh Orchid Dactylorhiza incarnata ssp coccinea

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

I have a Rowan, or Mountain ash tree in my garden.  Not only do the clusters of blazing orange berries look stunning long into autumn, but they provide a vital food supply for the garden birds.  They also give me something colourful to illustrate in the depths of winter.

Drawing the Rowan berry

First, draw a cluster of berries.  I use a Pentel P205 mechanical pencil, H lead.  This is because it never needs you to break from drawing to sharpen it, just snap the lead to a crisp edge by pushing against the page.

Keep the drawing simple.  No lights or darks, just a simple and accurate representation of the shapes of your clutch of rowan berries.

Beneath this study, I also draw one single berry.  I’ll be focused on this lone rowan berry, then using the approach used on the single fruit to add colour to all the berries in the drawing.

Mixing your dark oranges

Unconventionally, I start by plotting in areas of dark.  This helps me understand the shape of what I’m painting.  Lots of people using watercolour start very light and take their paintings gradually darker and darker; it’s an approach which works well.  However, I’ve always painted this way and even thought I’ve tried to change my ways, it’s easier for me to start out with those shadows.

The colour I mixed is cadmium orange light mixed with a little crimson.  This adds a darker red kick to the orange of the berry.  I look for distinct shapes in the darker areas, and plot them in.

It’s vital to leave lots of white.  Not only will these spaces provide you with highlights and shine, but you’ll be using them to work into gradations of colour between the dark orange and the shining white highlights.  Give yourself space to manoevre!

Look out for shine on the bulk of the berry, but also on the bottom of the curve.  Adding this light area helps describe the spherical shape.

Between all these steps, be sure you leave time for the paint to dry fully, or your layers of shade will all merge into one atonal muddy mess.

I always use a Winsor and Newton Series 7 paintbrush (in this case a number 1).  Winsor and Newton watercolour pans fill my paintbox, (although I’m currently experimenting with Daniel Smith watercolour trial dot cards too.)

Plotting in the mid tones

Next, you need to work into the bulk of the berry.  You need to keep the highlights white, but show a gentle change between the shadows and these light regions.  Mix a lighter orange.  I used cadmium orange light with less red added.  Lay this on top of the painted area, and overlap the edges a little, into the white zone.

I also dilute the mix with water as I move into the paler regions of the berry.  This is why the orange looks a little yellower there.

Repeat the action, but this time with a paler hue.  I mix some cadmium yellow light in with cadmium orange, and add some water to keep it bright and light.

Unfortunately the photo is a little out of focus, but I hope you can see how using the paint in an ever more dilute mix gives the suggestion of the colour brightening toward the highlights.

Always keep looking at the berry you’re illustrating.  You’ll only get the tonality right by referring to it endlessly.

Working into your darks and finishing your lights

The final step with the highlights is to unite the colour of the berry without swallowing the highlights.  A very dilute yellow provides the perfect colour.  Apply it over the entire berry, except for your most startling highlights.  If you look at the bottom curve of the rowan berry below, you cn see that the white has been entirely covered with the yellow wash.  It still provides visual information that tells us the berry is round, but it no longer pulls the eye from the highlight at the centre of the rowan berry.

Now you’ve sorted out the shine, you can look at the darks and shadows again.  I always come back to these areas and take them a couple fo steps deeper and darker.  In this case I mix up a deep crimson from cadmium orange dark, alizarin crimson, and a touch of purple.

Be careful adding these super-darks.  You don’t want them to swallow the whole rowan berry, just to add a bit of a “pop”.

You can see that the darks have been added at the very bottom of the fruit, and a touch in the dark area on the right, below the shine.  Another touch goes below the stalk and a final bit just on the left hand curve.

Colours used

Here is a colour swatch of the mixes I used.  The top purplish crimson was the final darkest darks.  Next colour down was the first painting I did, the initial plotting of shadows and shapes.  The second, paler orange was used for the midtones.  The bright yellow was applied across the whole berry, except for the brightest highlights.  In lighter areas it was diluted with lots of water.

For a step by step on painting blackberries, sloes, and hawthorn berries, please follow the links. For all my botanical illustration step by step blogs click here, and for a whole gallery of my sketchbook studies, please click here.

Applying this technique to the whole cluster of berries

Now you’ve figured out your approach and palette, you can apply it across the whole sketchbook study.

You also need to think about how the proximity of berries and leaves interplay.  One berry will cast a shadow onto the rowan berry below it.  A leaf may cast a shadow over the whole lot.  Keep looking at your specimen as you untangle this interplay of dark and light.

And here’s the finished study:

I used this as a base for a teaching session, and filmed some of it in real time (see below).  If you’d like a simplified version of this blog, as a printable A4 sheet, please check out my Pinterest post.

I hope this explanation of how you can use a study of one lone rowan berry as a starting point for a seemingly complicated sketch might be helpful.  As with everything to do with drawing and painting, it all boils down to looking, and taking things slowly, step by step.

The post Step by Step Rowan berry appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Pencil rough

As always, the first step is to get a pencil rough drawn up and sent off to the client for feedback.

Malham Visitor centre annotated pencil rough

I needed to add a few flowers to the turf.  Then we were good to get going on the painting.

Starting out: Sky and the stone wall

As with the Malham Cove landscape, I start by painting in a sky across almost the entire sheet of paper.  This unifies the illustration and allows foreground details to pop out at the viewer.  These are spared the pale blue wash.

Next I painted the wall.  Talk about mindfulness!  It was a full (and happy) day of painting first the shadows, then a top wash on each and every stone.  I mixed up five different greys.  There was one purplish, one greenish, one with a blue hue, one brown, and one with lots of yellow in. Switching between these colours ensured the wall looked varied and interesting.

Detail showing painted wall

Painting the trees

Next up came the trees- another day of pale washes, but these ones were gentle greens.  For these colours I mixed plenty of yellow ochre and some blues and purples with the pan-ready greens. This makes the greens truer to nature.  I plotted in the turf, getting brighter and more saturated in colour as I progressed to the foreground.

Malham visitor centre landscape with most of the background painted in.

Illustrating the Wildlife Garden bird feeder

After spending some time working into the plants in the turf, I started on the precise detail of the bird feeder.  After so much wet landscape work, this close and exacting work was a relief. To get the effect of brushed aluminium I used cerulean blue watercolour (I tend to favour Winsor and Newton paints) mixed with a touch of purple lake and a tiny bit of vandyke brown, and made sure to apply the paint in sharp stripes, going over the centre of each area of blue twice to show the darkest parts of the metal.  The peanuts were less successful and I fear they resemble baked beans.

Detail of Malham visitor centre illustration showing detailing of the bird feeder

Malham visitor centre landscape in progress

I enjoyed working up the bird bath in the foreground, making sure there were plenty of wild flowers around the base.  These included black knapweed, hawksbit, red clover, daisy, buttercup, and self-heal.  I trieda to get some decent texture into the moss and lichen on the limestone.

Detail of Malham visitor centre illustration in progress showing the bird bath and wild flowers.

Adding in the birds

The birds now look like bits of a jigsaw puzzle that are missing.  This is one of my favourite moments in a landscape like this – the hard work is done and just the detailing of the animals remains.

The first two birds were not a great success, I went in too heavily with bright colours and lost some of the delicacy of the colours of a chaffinch.  I also think there’s something wrong with the chaffinch perched on top of the bird feeder.  It looks rather pigeon-esque.  However, I enjoyed the golfinches and the sparrows. I love mixing the blue greys and warmer ochres and browns of the sparrow feathers.  Going in with the facial scarlet on the goldfinch is great fun.

Detail of the bird feeder (from the completed illustration).

Close up detail of sparrow in flight (larger than life to show brush strokes)

Illustrating the starlings

Once I’d finished painting all the sparrows, goldfinch and chaffinch, there were just the starlings (and their stunning irridescent plumage) to paint.

Wildlife garden at the Malham visitor centre in progress.

I loved doing the starlings, using vibrant pink, green, and yellow Doctor Martin hydrous inks straight from the bottle.

Deatil of starlings (3 x original size so you can see the brush strokes)

The landscape was now complete.  A few more tweaks here and there, mostly making the shadows under the birds bolder by adding purple and blue washes, and we were there.  In the past, I would have rubbed out the underlying pencil from a landscape such as this, but now I tend to leave it as it adds a bit of clarity to the work but (I hope) doesnt look too clumsy.

Completed illustration

It’s always scary working on such a giant illustration, but the sense of relief when it’s compelted and I’ve not made any irreperable errors, or spilt a mug of tea over the whole thing is immense.

It’s also worth noting that if you’re into wildlife gardening, spare a thought for the mammals such as the hedgehogs as well as the birds.  For more on this check out this hedgehog blog by Claire Mitchell.

Now I’ll use this and the sister landscape of Malham Cove and its birds (see my blog on creating this accompnaying landscape) in a layout for the desk in the Malham Visitor Centre.  And then maybe, sometime down the line, Ill treat myself to going to see it in situ!

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Natural history illustration incorporates a wide range of techniques.  I realised about ten years ago that a desirable type of of natural science illustration was one that incorporated numerous species of plant and animal into one landscape.  This wetland landscape done for Natural England is an example.

Working on a new landscape Illustration: Hartslock nature reserve

Recently I’ve been commissioned by Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) to create a landscape of one of their reserves.  Hartslock reserve has a glorious hill in it which is blousy with seven different species of orchid.  This includes the hybrid lady-monkey orchid which is found nowhere else in the UK.

These seven orchid species need to be incorporated into a scene of the hill.   Other key species of animals also need to be included. The chalkhill-blue butterfly, grizzled skipper, white-stripe grasshopper and brown argus are found on Hartslock hill.  Other plants to include are the knapweed, the field scabious, wild marjoram, cowslip, and clustered bell-flower.  BBOWT are lovely to work for as they provide me with really good reference.

Working up the composition of the landscape

In an ideal world, I’d be able to go and sketch all the elements.  This job came in in February when there’s not so much as a hint of an orchid in sight.  So, I rely on photographic reference and illustrations by other botanical artists.

First step is to try and visualise the illustration.  Piecing together all the different components into one coherent landscapecan take a while.  I normally produce about 6 different approaches before settling on two that I work on further.  As I do this I tend to come up with questions that need clarifying.  These get noted down on the sheet so I remember to email them to the client later on.

Next, I draw up thumbnail sketches (very rough ideas) of a couple of options.  These are always rough, but are clear enough for the client to see and understand.  Here, the main difference between the two is the landscape (included or not) and the viewpoint of the orchids.  In one option you’re right up amongst them, in the other there’s enough distance so you can see the entire plant.  They are annotated so the client can see what you’re suggesting goes where.  (It also means I can remember what species is what!)

Landscape pencil roughs and drawing up the final piece

I was really happy that they decided they preferred the second one, with the landscape.  It makes for a far prettier illustration, and it means there’s less of a big expanse of hill to “colour in”.

Next step is to draw the actual rough up in detail.  First, I draw the landscape in.  I keep the pencil lines light as I plan not to rub them out at the end; they give some substance to the illustration.  Then I put extremely faint markings on the page which suggest, in blocks, where the different animals and plants should go.

Next, I draw up the animal species.  Sometimes using a projector can help with this, as you need to shrink and enlarge the butterflies and grasshoppers to fit into their space in the landscape.

Then I draw in the plants.  In this case drawing up all the orchids, and ensuring their accuracy, took a long time.  Once foreground and background are complete, I put in the middle-ground; the suggestion of distant flowers and orchids, and a bit of scrub, across the hill.  Then I scan it in, stitch it together (the illustration is far larger than my A4 flat bed scanner), adjust the darks and lights so the pencil is clear, and then produce an annotated version for the client.  They get the annotated and unnanotated version emailed to them.  The next (nail-biting) stage is to wait for feedback, and to see what needs changing before going to final.

Starting out: A pale background for the landscape

Once the alterations are complete, it’s time to break out the paints.  I use a very pale blueish wash across everything but the immediate foreground to start, and make it bolder in the sky.

Then I work into the background, again using incredibly pale paints to give a sense of distance.  Less seems to be more when it comes to painting landscape, so often I’ll suggest an area of scrub, or a building, rather than paint it in detail.

Illustrating the middle ground of the landscape

Once the background is done, Ill move forward into the middle-ground.  This takes a little longer than the background as all the trees and grass need to be textured.  Paint colours remain pale, although somewhat stronger then they were for the background.  Using a certain amount of “wet-on-wet” is useful here, a way to suggest the turrets of distant orchids without having to paint each and every bloom.  The volunteer surveying the orchids is plotted in, and as you progress to the foreground there’s increasingly more colour and detail.

At this stage, the painting looks like a child’s jigsaw; all the background complete, but the key species still waiting to be slotted in.  This is my favourite part of these types of painting (click for more examples of my composite landscapes); losing yourself in the intricate detail of each individual plant or animal.

Painting in the animals and individual plants

It can take ages, but with each successive species painted you feel happier and happier with the painting.

Finally, it’s time to rub out some of the more prominent pencil lines, and to cover the background with a light yellow ochre wash.  This unites the background, and brings the foreground into sharp focus.  Final tweaks, mostly involving sharpening areas with shadow, and it’s complete.

And one of the best things about this job is that the client has said they really like it!  Wonderful news, and a fabulous job to work on.

Below is a time lapse video of the landscape being painted (apologies for my hair!)

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