Some leaf and flower studies
Last night, an art friend mentioned the book Botanical Illustration by Siriol Sherlock, and I pulled out my copy and read a little before going to bed.
Big mistake.
I turned fitfully and dreamed of impossible leaves and flowers and woke up in about two hours, probably due to Ripley snoring. But once awake, I couldn’t get those illustrations out of my mind. So I toddled down to my studio and studied some of the instructions, and then used some of my own reference photos to practice what I read on a scrap of watercolor paper. Modeling shiny surfaces wet in wet is going to take a lot of practice before I get any measure of comfort.
Do you ever get that way with an art project – where it grabs you and won’t let you go until you practice something or try something out?
Sketchcrawl at the Huntington
It was a spectacular spring day, not too warm, not too cool and all five of us (me, Nancy, Robin, Diann and Wendee) enjoyed the natural beauty of the Huntington for another memorable sketchcrawl. Our first stop was the Shakespeare garden (I’ll be scanning my sketch and posting it tomorrow or the next day) … second was the Japanese garden (this one), which was my favorite location of the day. We wrapped it up in the desert garden where we were joined by Diann’s husband and daughter.
As usual, many people stopped by to see what we were doing throughout the “crawl” and one journal keeper from Orlando showed us some of his watercolors as we compared notes about Niji waterbrushes and other traveling paint brushes.
This sketch was painted in about 45 minutes, give or take a bit. I stopped before painting the tree in the lower right hand corner or the water under the bridge so this is a “not quite finished” work in progress. So if you’re wondering why it looks like I just sort of stopped, it’s because I did. (smile)
I look forward to going back again soon and painting this garden from another vantage point, and to visit several other highlights as well. There’s just too much to take in all in a day. And then there’s the arboretum, too. We really do have a wealth of botanical gardens within a 20 minute drive. And I understand that the Getty’s gardens are overflowing with color, too.
Arty bits: painted in my super aquabee sketchbook with portable palette of tube paints and a Niji waterbrush.
Coffee at The Alcove
What a wonderful day … we started off in the LA Flower Mart at 7 am for a tour with a Descanso Gardens floral arrangement expert (more on that later) … then brunch at Operetta, a French cafe at the Flower Mart … then over to Barnsdall Park to see a show of fine art by Otis art college graduates (a show which ends tomorrow) … then a brief stop at an art supply store which my dear husband called to my attention, ending up at a charming coffee house called The Alcove on Hillhurst, near the Greek Theater, where we sipped cappucinos and I drew this courtyard tree. I drew a few people also but those will have to wait for another scanning session. Because I hadn’t intended to paint today, I took a simple sketchbook with eh paper for note taking and pencil drawing, so the color here had to be added digitally after the drawing was scanned. A 4B pencil was used for the sketching part.
I wish I knew the name of this tree, I’ll have to look it up in the Sunset garden book. Rough striated bark, grayish brown trunk and limbs, very “ordinary” looking leaves, oval, pointed, smooth edges. You see them all over So. Cal. It appears to be a deciduous tree as the leaves look new, bright green and on the small side. This is going to bug me until I figure it out, y’know?
Edited to add
The raw scan out of the sketchbook
I’ve created a grad from green to brown, pulled back the opacity to 50%, and set the grad to multiply
I made a composite of the previous layers and put it on a fresh layer. Then I added new layers and painted some foliage where it made sense. There are three layers of leaves, in varying opacity and color, to suggest volume and depth. I also painted a little color on the trunk.
The tree was a 15-20 min. sketch, the time it took for my husband to stand in line to get coffees while I claimed a table in the crowded courtyard. Photoshopping took about another 10 minutes.
I made the conscious decision not to fit all the tree on the page but to concentrate on the parts that interested me the most, the sinuous trunk and limbs and the textured bark.
I hope you found these additional “work in progress stages” parts interesting
White Poppy
Someone please tell me what possessed me to try to paint white poppies on a Moleskine page previously toned with darker paint? As a first attempt with a difficult flower it would have made a lot more sense to use watercolor paper and reserve the whites. But no … I had to do it the bass ackward way. The background is all acrylic – a mixture of red, blue, yellow and white. Most of the white of the poppies is acrylic, the better to cover the mottled background. Then there’s some gouache in there for shadows, and more dilute acrylic on top.
These are Iceland poppies from (where else?) Descanso Gardens. I have some matilija poppies in a pot, and when they bloom I’ll give it another try.
Another opening, another show
A different view of an opening magnolia blossom from Descanso.
As part of an ongoing experiment with some art friends, I painted the background with Van Dyke brown watercolor, then scumbled some white gouache over top. When that was dry I drew the flower and stems and painted it with watercolor and gouache, and touched it up with a little colored pencil at the end.
I might go back and add the genus and species later, but maybe not. This was done mostly for practice.
I wish these magnolias bloomed all year. I just love, love, love them.
A nest in the west – Illo Friday Spring
For more current spring paintings from my journals … click here .
Last springtime, a finch family came looking for nesting quarters and decided that the eaves were not nearly as hospitable as one of my hanging Boston ferns. I saw the frantic search for twigs and grasses, the constant flying to and fro of the parents and before long I had a good idea that there were little ones on the way. One day when both parents were out looking for food I hurriedly took the basket down for a look (camera at the ready.) I took a picture that was the inspiration for this painting and quickly put the hanging nursery back where I found it. (There would be no drawing or painting from life for this one.) Eventually two sisters and a brother hatched, fledged, and grew to lead successful independent lives of their own. When I see finches returning in the spring I always wonder if they’re members of the same family.
Arty bits: Painted in gouache in a Moleskine sketchbook
Magnolia blossom 1
The magnolia shrubs are in full bloom at Descanso, and I had the opportunity to paint some of them in my botanicals sketchbook a week or so ago. I will probably do another page with the blossom fully open, but at the time I loved their sculptural look in well-formed bud. It’s no wonder that these are often nicknamed “tulip trees.” I would like to have one of these in my yard, and perhaps I’ll plant one some time. We lost a very large magnolia tree to oak root fungus many years ago, so I’ve been hesitant to plant anything in the magnolia family since then.
Two guys out for a walk
Seen at a farmer’s market … a man and his lizard. I liked the look of the these two buds, hanging out together, getting some fresh air and a snack. Some days it actually is easy being green.
Return to the teahouse
I am visiting Descanso Gardens several times a week now, weather permitting, just to capture the changing beauty of the season. Day by day the garden seems to change. The rain that nourishes some buds to open washes away others in full flower. It reminds me that beauty is very fleeting and that the time to appreciate it is NOW, not someday. A trip to the garden in May will let me paint sunflowers but not cherry blossoms.
This garden area incorporates the Japanese landscaping principle of “hide and reveal.” You enter the garden through several gates, and as you follow several meandering paths, new vistas appear before you. If you stroll by the garden from the outside, you may glimpse a different view through the camellia shrub hedge, such as this one.
If you were to move yourself 90 degrees to the left, you would see this view – that flowering tree is the same. (Oh, and Go Bruins … onward to the Final Four!)
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.
