This drawing is larger than normal for me at 5.5”x8”. I used Arches hotpress watercolor paper because of a scanner problem with Fabriano Artistico.
When scanned, the Artistico displays a ‘grain’ that’s not visible to the eye. As far as I can deduce, it’s because scanners only scan from one direction, and they pick up a shadowed pattern in the paper.
To correct it, I’ve had to rotate the paper a few fractions of a degree and then crop the work square again in Photoshop. That made the grain disappear, but it was time-consuming.
Pencils!
I’m using Grafwoods to lay down the initial hatch because they are so pure in value that there is hardly any side-by-side overlap edge darkening in a single value hatch. In other words, mama can lay down a hatch quick as lightnin’.
However, today I needed a value the Graphwoods couldn’t easily give to me. I needed to darken an H hatch and the HB was too dark. Just pulling back on the pressure didn’t work because the Graphwoods are so darn pure in value. So, I used a 2H Lumnograph pencil over the top of the Graphwood hatch and it worked fine. Lord luv a duck, I am SUCH a pencil nerd!
Details
During this round, I fleshed-out the leaf details entirely with Lumnographs. The Lumnograph hatch is livelier than the Graphwood’s because they each have a larger range, and I love them.
I added some background with the Graphwoods around the leaves to help me adjust the leaf values. To my horror, I discovered that I’d missed the value on some of the leaves by a half step, which was time-consuming to correct. Having just a bit of dark value around a leaf helped me see the value correctly, so next time I’m drawing anything like this I’ll probably encircle it with the background value.
I’ve decided to use a 9B on the top part of the background and 7b on the bottom part of the drawing to mimic the natural background’s averaged values. The natural background was a mix of grass and ground ivy that I have no interest in drawing.
A mid-drawing mini-breakdown.
I’m worried these leaves will look unnatural on top of a dark background, even though they were on top of a dark background in nature, and I’m suddenly unsure of this drawing. There’s a meditation technique of separating yourself from the result of what you are trying to do so that you can concentrate on just ‘doing.’
While practicing this technique, my meditating self would have me appreciate that I’ve drawn some nice leaves. My overly-rational result-orientated realistic-self counters that there’s a 50% chance of failing.
Alrighty then, chin up and keep drawing is my less than zen-like response to every drawing crises.
More Background
I felt much better the next day after applying more background. I could see that I’d captured the sunlight on the leaves as they were dangling there, taking in the rays of the sun.
The background looks very textured in contrast to the leaves, but the values look right.
I see the background now as having a slight effervescent quality, like bubbles capturing light, and the whole drawing looks lighter than air. This is something I didn’t plan, but sometimes drawings go their own way, and maybe it’s best to let them go.
Hmmm.
I think this piece has an okay overall visual impact, but it lacks punch and is not one of my best.
The leaves lack depth, which is a difficult requirement for nearly flat leaves, but I feel I’ve let the piece down in the three-dimensional department.
I wish I’d drawn it on Fabriano Artistico. Damn. With this non-blended style of drawing, texture plays a huge role, and I think Artistico’s texture would have helped to develop the feel of depth in this piece. So, I’m going back to Artistico for future drawings of this type, and I’ll live with the scanner problem.
Live, learn, and keep drawing everyone!
Carol