This is a Xerographica air plant that I’ve raised since it was the size of my fist into the fifteen-inch monster that it is now. The reference photo I used for this drawing had a good-looking abstract form, but was only average in contrast and detail. So the challenge of this drawing was to deepen the shadows and lighten the highlights to create a more three-dimensional form with interesting detail.
Non-Blended Hatching
I used Fabriano Artistico paper with Straetdler Lumnograph pencils again for this drawing. I fell in love with how this paper looked hatched with these pencils during the drawing of Grape Leaves, and decided that this drawing could benefit from the texture that the non-blended technique creates too.
As you can see, I worked from the center outward, which was a lousy idea logistically. Thankfully, the Copyit app that holds my reference photo on my iPad saved me from myself. It has a ‘lock’ feature, so I could rotate the reference and draw at any angle. That way, I could work without laying my hand on the parts that I’d already drawn. (Note to self: send thank you note to maker of Copyit app.)
Water Detail
I’d just sprayed this plant with water before I took the reference shot and some of the leaves had absorbed the water already, some had not, and there were some water droplets still standing, so the whole thing was a mixed bag of subtle detail. (The water drops didn’t really look like this, though.)
I worried that there wouldn’t be enough water detail on the leaves and that the composition would be a little dreary. I could try to re-spray and re-photo the plant if I needed more water detail, but I can never come up with the same lighting twice. This seems to be a photographic curse of mine.
I try not to erase with this hatching technique because it can smear the hatch, so I draw ‘around’ light details like the highlight in this wet leaf. Then I darken the highlight with a harder lead if it needs to be darker.
I find this non-blended hatch way of working liberating after so many years of carefully blending my work with a brush, and my work is getting larger to accommodate this technique. My drawings used to be in the four to five inch range, and now they are six or seven inches wide. Who knows, I could even make a normal-sized 8×10 drawing in the future!
The reference shot of this Zerographica looked ‘flat’ because the light I took the photo in was very low and nearly non-directional, so I was happy to see good three-dimensionality developing in the drawing.
I deliberately drew some of the upper light leaves brighter to give them ‘lift’, and I pushed down some of the darker leaves by darkening their bases just a bit.
This drawing is made up of gradations and very few ‘hard’ details, except the leaf edges, so it came along quickly. It was fun to quickly fill the paper with a three-dimensional form, because the building of form is what I love most about drawing. However, the gradations had to be smooth and needed constant touching-up, or they looked really blotchy.
I didn’t mind touching up the gradations, though. Drawing is like a contemplative meditation, and drawing the everyday loveliness I find around me is my artistic mission. I hope a little bit of that narrative comes through in my work.
The circled area on the lower right was inky dark on the photo reference, so I lightened it a lot. I tried to make it balance with the dark areas circled to the left of the drawing.
On the other hand, I might have made the drawing look less dynamic by balancing them too well. Hmmm.
I thought the water droplets were going to be easy to draw, so I sketched them where I wanted them as round droplets, but this plant doesn’t usually hold water in big fat droplets. Because it lives in a dry environment, it has evolved a surface that grabs water and distributes it quickly.
So, those nice little globes that I sketched in were all wrong. I had to re-spray and re-photo the plant very quickly several times before I could catch any droplets at all. True to my realistic bent, I’ve re-drawn my water drops as they really look on this plant … kinda dark and dull and in the process of being grabbed by the plant.
I hadn’t noticed this plant gobbling up drops of water before, and I’ve lived with it for several years. I blame it on the morning circus of animal feeding and watering several plants! However, drawing makes me slow down and draw life as I find it, and I’m thrilled to the core to be able to do that.
A Small Rant In Defense of Representational Art
I was recently jarred out of my pleasant art groove while reading a book about creativity called Blessed Are The Weird by Jacob Nordby. In this book the author indiscriminately declares that he doesn’t like representational art and implies that it is not very creative. The author apologized after I left a snarky three-star review of his book on Amazon, however, I doubt he realizes the extent of hurt those few lines of exclusion he wrote has likely caused.
You choose to make art from a personally deep place, and the art that is created from that place is a gift to the world. Representational art is more than lines and shading on paper or canvas. In the contemplative process of its creation, an alchemy of soul and spirit of place intermingle.
I’m going to leave you with a quote from representational painter Robert Jackson. I hope you will take it to heart as much as I have.
“As far as I understand, creativity should have no bounds. Representational painting is a very slow and thoughtful utterance and means of communication. New advances such as digital technology add to our human experiences but don’t necessarily have to remove or negate our past appreciations. Just as synthesizers didn’t eliminate a desire to hear acoustic music with the squeak of fingers across a fret, people find enjoyment in looking at the hard work and decision making that a painter displays on a canvas with all its successes and imperfections. An artist should be using whatever vehicle speaks to them personally. Representational painting is simply that means for me. I’ve found it an effective and satisfying way to speak to the viewers I want to reach.”
~~~Robert Jackson~~~
Keep drawing everyone,
Carol
Robert Jackson Quote taken from Huffpost Article:
5 Artists on the Enduring Qualities of Representational Painting
F. Scott Hess, Contributor