Three Leaves

This is another composition that I found in a bunch of photos that I took over the summer. The lighting is a bit odd, and I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out. As a matter of fact, the photo I have is a little out of focus.

I’m using Arches hotpress watercolor paper, Mars Lumograph, and Grafwood pencils to make this drawing. Arches’ paper holds deep blacks yet you can render delicate details on it too, and Lumograph and Grafwood are both excellent drawing pencils. I’m using the Lumographs for the dark textures and the Grafwoods for the light leaf hatching because they are so true to their value range. I’ll talk more about the pencils I use later.

As always, I start with a tracing made from the photo. Then I load my reference photo into the CopyIt app on my iPad and draw from there. I’m very nearsighted, so I work with my glasses off, with my nose a few inches away from the drawing. I’m comfortable working like this, and I’m sure it has contributed to my highly detailed drawing style, since I’m naturally so close to the details.

The large left leaf has a lot of subtle detail, and the detail is maddeningly just out of focus in the photo, making it look ultra soft. I’m using a Grafwood 4H pencil to draw this leaf because of it’s tight value range. I can’t push this pencil much darker than the darkest notes that you see here, and that makes it fairly easy to draw the mottled design of the vein pattern without making it too dark. The 4H Lumograph, on the other hand, has a broader value range and could have easily left behind hatching that was too dark, making my life much harder.

I’m not exactly lying about the detail on this leaf, but I am exaggerating it. I’m over drawing the dark notes and under drawing the light notes to tighten up some of the softness in the focus by creating contrast. This is producing a slight three-dimensional look on the leaf’s surface. I didn’t plan to do this. I’m not that clever. It happened by accident when I overshot my values one morning, and I decided I liked the look and went with it.

I’m not exactly lying about the detail on the small leaf in the middle but … okay, yes I am lying. I took the photo into Photoshop and darkened the leaf by a few steps, and that version is what I’m drawing from. I darkened the leaf because even though it has a reddish hue and stands out in the color version of the photo, its values are actually not that much different than the big leaves that are on either side of it. In other words, it would get lost in a grayscale drawing unless I intervened. So I intervened.

I’m using HB and B Lumograph pencils to draw this small dark leaf because of the lovely range of dark tones I can create with them.

Because of the soft focus of the photo, I wasn’t sure this drawing was going to work out. Now that I think it might, it makes me wish I hadn’t crammed the drawing onto a sheet of paper with small borders. I was being frugal and saving paper, you see. Now, if the drawing is ever framed, there are very few options for the framer. Oh dear. There is a lesson to be learned here, I think.

The large leaf to the immediate right of the small leaf has a quirky mix of veins. Some are thick and some are mere wisps. Drawing them is mind-numbing, since the nearly invisible veins take an extremely light touch to draw. I take many breaks and come back with fresh eyes to make sure I’m drawing them close enough to reality. I’m using a Grafwood 3H pencil to draw this leaf’s values.

I have to admit that this veiny leaf is not my favorite to draw. It’s not very sculptural. It’s ALL about the veins! I used to sculpt jewelry out of wax for a living, and the part of me that loves shape is still very much alive. Yes, I do love texture too, but I like it with a healthy dose of form underneath.

This leaf turned out to be about the same value as the big one on the left, when it was supposed to be lighter. But then, I did draw the big left leaf awfully light. If I had to grade myself on how this drawing was going so far, I’d give myself a C. After a glass of wine, I’d give myself a C/E. (E for effort.) Time to finish this thing.

Between the leaves, the middle top is a particularly out of focus area in the photo. I’ve switched back to my Mars Lumograph pencils, so I can easily create the dark tones seen there. This area is not very pretty, it sort of hangs there in the middle of the drawing, and I’m laboring over it. I feel the urge to add a few twigs that fade into the dark background as the photo shows, so I’ve taken what I can from the photo and edited heavily with the help of my imagination to create a dark twiggy fill. But I get the feeling that the finished area looks more like a tapestry than a three-dimensional nature scene, so I think I’ve stumbled here.

The right corner is a mishmash of leaf and weed parts. Honestly, the photo is so blurry in this area that I’m extracting as much information as I can to help myself draw this thing and that thing and hoping it’ll all come together in the end. I’m rather okay with the outcome, even though my hatching stretched reality quite a bit. You can see a weed there, and I think that’s a nice touch in the composition.

This drawing has been a rollercoaster ride of success and failure for me. It certainly has made me grow as an artist. I had to discover near impressionistic hatching to fill in some blurred areas, and cross my fingers and hope for the best in other areas. This caused a lot of under the breath and right out loud cursing, but I’m glad I tackled this one. And in my heart, I’m happy to know that my medium can still challenge me after all these years.

Keep drawing everyone,
Carol

Author: Carol

I'm an artist, an accidental author, and lover of life. I grew up in Yorktown, Indiana, and I've been writing (and drawing) this website since 1999. View all posts by Carol