Two Begonias Drawn In Graphite

After working on a composition of three begonias for a long time, I couldn’t convince myself that they were the begonias I really wanted to draw. My eyes kept flirting with these two small flowers on the rim of the flower pot instead. They were in soft lighting, slightly out of focus, and I fell in love with them.

Begonias are odd little flowers, and each one pretty much does its own thing. True to form, each of these begonias has a different type of stamen.

The problem with yellow stamens in pink flowers is that we have to lie when we draw them in grayscale. As you can see in the photo to the left, which is the photo above converted to grayscale, the yellow stamens have nearly disappeared.

Line Drawing Onto Art Paper
I transferred the line drawing onto Arches hotpress watercolor paper via the thin lightbox that I plug into my computer. This drawing is going to be 4” square. I’ll be using Grafwood pencils for the entire drawing.

The only change I’m making is ‘unfolding’ the top petal to make the flowers look as if they are touching each other.

(I wish these companies would send me free samples of their products for my devotion, but no luck so far. Damn.)

The First Values
I usually begin drawing the focus of the drawing first, and in this case that would be the flowers. Because this drawing is about the overall ambience, though, I’m going to bring along all parts of the drawing at the same time.

I used an H pencil to hatch-in a few shadowed areas of the begonia petals, and then brushed over that hatching to smooth it and add value to the rest of the petals. I used the brush that I’ve cut especially for blending graphite, and I’ll have to explain how cut a brush for that purpose in a separate post at a later date.

The clay pot’s values were made with my brush without any previous hatching. I don’t clean my brush between drawings, so I can always count on being able to make light values with just the brush alone.

Nothing has very much form at this point in the drawing, and none of the values are at their final stage. I’m leaving myself room to adjust each part of the drawing as I continue to work

The Magic Moment
The initial longing I felt for these two flowers is becoming stronger. They seem to be a pair, and the lighting is very sensual, but that’s all I know at the moment.

In this step, I’ve added more form to the leaves, petals and clay pot through shading by hatching, and then by brushing the hatching smooth.

The drawing seems to have a sense of presence now, and the movement from ‘not much’ to ‘something’ on paper never fails to touch me emotionally. It seems like a nearly sacred moment, like I’ve leaned forward and breathed form into the two-dimensional flat shapes. It’s one of the reasons why I love to draw.

My Hatching Before Brushing
This is how my hatching looks before I brush it. As you can see, there’s nothing too special about it. It’s tight and it overlaps a bit. It wobbles around, but it generally runs in the same direction.

My Hatching After Brushing
Graphite hatching smooths out very nicely when brushed with a stiff brush. However, there’s no reason for you to smooth your hatching as much or as often as I do, or at all. I invented my particular technique out the love of a beautiful finish.

I used to be a jeweler and I worked with both gold and wax models. The finish on both of those materials had to be flawless. Gold had to be perfectly polished before it went to the customer, and wax models had to perfectly finished before they were cast so that no precious metal would be wasted.

When I came back to drawing after many years as a jeweler, I wanted to put a fine finish on my drawings too. I experimented with brushing hatching between the stages of drawing, and it worked exceptionally well with graphite, my preferred medium.

In this drawing, it’s impossible to brush around the petals without smudging them, but they clean up well with a light touch of the kneaded eraser. I wish I could have drawn the background first to avoid this problem, but all the values are dependent on each other in this drawing, and they are evolving as I work on them.

Leaf Edges
Begonia leaf edges are toothy and irregular. They sprout little hairs too, which can make them appear to have a soft edge at some angles.

I used the wedge end point of my Kemper Wipeout Tool to tap out feathery details from the dark background around the leaf edges. The rubber tip lifted the dense graphite really well with just a slight pressure if I kept the tip clean by pushing it into my kneaded eraser.

Petal Shaping And Composition
The petals of the right flower are all slightly rounded downward after they come out of the middle of the flower, and I think I captured that.

The left flower is lit from behind more than the right flower, so I started trying to capture that unique lighting in this step.

I added another leaf edge behind the right flower, and a more complete leaf behind the left one to fill out the composition. I think the large leaf on the top right now becomes more of the framing and a tad less overbearing.

 

The Struggle Of The Stamens
Both of these flower’s stamens took several tries to get to the point you see here, and I’m not happy with them at all.

On a nine square grid placed over the drawing, each stamen rests on a focus point. It’s like both of them are shouting, ‘Look at me, look at me!’ … and they’re disappointingly dark and blurry. Sigh.

The trouble with the stamens is that I simply can’t see them very well, so I can’t draw them very well. What was I thinking! Well, I wasn’t thinking when I chose these begonias to draw. I was emoting.

Here are the left begonia’s stamens drawn more realistically with respect to lighting, and they are about the same as the last version. Maybe worse. Yikes!

I’m close to giving up and declaring this drawing an emotional exploration and a visual failure.

I do understand the emotional pull of this drawing now. These are male and female flowers, I think, and I wanted to draw them because they represent my husband and myself. Sometimes my emotional attachment to a drawing subject overrules my good sense about my ability to draw it, and I end up in a situation like this.

Following an emotion and exploring my intention with drawing is an important reason why I draw, though, so I want to show this drawing to you even if it turns out badly. It will be part of myself no matter how it turns out.

 

Final Drawing
After I’d given up on drawing the left flower’s stamens, as I sat staring at them with pencil in hand, I started drawing them as you see them here. They aren’t strictly based on reality, but they’ll do.

Then I shut myself in my studio (no dogs, cats, or husbands allowed), found a reference in the same lighting for the right flower’s stamens, and drew them too. They were a different kind of stamen and I took liberties with them to make them suit but, frankly, I think begonia’s just make it up as they go along anyway.

I think that the stamens have a bit of life to them now. I lost count of how many times I re-drew them, but the paper under each is absolutely exhausted.

I kept working on this drawing instead of bailing out because I’m stubborn. When I finally gave up and let go for about ten seconds, my intuition was able to step in and show the way. Why didn’t that happen sooner? Maybe it could have if I hadn’t panicked.

Intuition led me to draw these begonias, and intuition showed me how to finish drawing them. Note to self: Trust your intuition.

Keep drawing everyone,
Carol

P.S. If there are any botanists out there who want to set me straight on begonia stamens and pistils, I’d love to hear from you. I tried looking it up, but I’m still confused about which is what. Personally, I think begonias may have a third sex, maybe a fourth and a fifth. And who knew they were having so much fun out there in their little clay pots!