An attempt at botanical illustrations

I have always been interested in trying my hand at botanical illustrations. My father was a forester and a horticulturist, my mother a florist and I come from a long line of fanatical gardeners so I guess it makes sense that this line of illustration would interest me. Initially I wanted to do the botanical illustrations from scratch and I registered with an online course teaching you how to do this. I think I packed that in after the first leaf – definitely not for me!!!!!

Botanical illustrations are not just a case of drawing a plant, fruit, vegetable or flower and colouring it with a water colour wash. Each ridge, line and root hair has to be measured and charted and colour accurately matched. First with calipers on the actual leaf for example and then onto a ruler which then needs to be transferred accurately onto paper down to the last mm. It did my head in, it was way too technical and painstakingly tedious for me and I quickly lost my joy of drawing and observing and my drawings lacked spontaneity. It became a tedious chore rather than fun. Then it occurred to me…. Why not draw in a botanical style? I have a book of antique botanical illustrations and I started practicing by copying them and then playing with photographs of flowers I found on the net doing them in the botanical style I saw in the book. Botanical drawings are intended to be anatomically accurate as well as aesthetically pleasing. I am just aiming for aesthetically pleasing with an illusion of “anatomical correctness”….. Calipers, rulers, microscopes and magnifying glasses are not items you will ever find in my art studio. I am just completely and absolutely unable to draw anything I have to measure with a ruler. I am more of a squint at my pencil out of one eye kinda gal to get my scale and distance right!

This style of drawing is a very good exercise though. Always room for improving my drawing skills. It is essential for any artist to be able to observe and draw what they observe. This type of drawing forces you to study your ‘specimen’ very carefully. In the future when I do my larger scale flower paintings it will help make me more aware of the structure of the flower I am painting. So far I am having fun with the many hours in front of my drawing board – not something I mind as long as I don’t have to measure every angle and degree where the leaf and stem join…..

At the moment all my work is in pencil and pencil crayon. I would like to try my hand at water colour, but I am not familiar with the medium at all and will need to give myself a few lessons before I attempt that. What I have discovered though is if I want to keep my paper clean and smudge free I need to rest my hand on another piece of paper to avoid making a mess of the completed areas!

And my efforts to date….

All on A4 Artists sketch paper done in pencil and coloured pencil crayon