Spring lilacs – challenge 59
It was cool and partly cloudy, but spring was in the air today at Descanso Gardens, where the lilacs are beginning to bloom. I painted this botanical study in my paperblanks journal which I am using for that purpose, exclusively (see callistemon, earlier this month.)
I used a combination of tube watercolor paints and caran d’ache watersoluble crayons for this one – with just the barest pencil drawing underneath. A Niji waterbrush provided the water. It was a special treat to have several conversations with other garden visitors who like plants and art.
Now, this is in complete contrast to “Union Station Sketchcrawl” (March 12) in which I changed almost every aspect of the courtyard to suit my composition. Here, I tried to faithfully represent the subject as best I could. I think that both are good styles for drawing, you just need to be clear about your objective before beginning.
Hat trick
I’ve been talking to some of my art friends about going to a life drawing session and they made some very good recommendations about using materials I’m familiar with. Usually I draw with either ink or watercolor, unless I’m doing something digital. But neither of those seems well suited to a life drawing class. I think that graphite or charcoal would be best, until I can get around to using paint, but that may take some practice. So I’m going to do some exploring with different media before I attend that first session. I rather like the look and feel of toned paper – it seems a bit easier to create dimension than building it all up with the graphite. I’d really love to do drawings with brush pen, and I guess there’s no reason I couldn’t bring a few different things to try.
Earlier today I saw a neat pencil drawing on toned paper, and I had some “bogus rough sketch” paper on hand to experiment with. I drew this using a 4B water soluble Derwent pencil (then I added some water to slosh it around a bit) and finished up with Prismacolor white pencil and some 4B Derwent graphite pencil. I think I’ll try some figures, too, just to see how it goes. I recall seeing some fantastic figure drawing on toned paper in Drawing magazine … around here somewhere … hmmm …
Oh and UCLA beat Alabama, onward to the Sweet Sixteen. Go Bruins.
