Tài liệu Drawing by Lauren Jarrett and Lisa Lenard- P5 ppt

Part 4 ➤ Developing Drawing Skills

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When you first start out drawing specimens from nature, it’s best to work at a scale that’s 75

percent to 100 percent of the original, so you can see and draw the detail.

Playing with scale comes with practice, and once you’re comfortable

with working close to reality, for fun you can try 200 percent or 400

percent—and really see the detail.

Take Your Sketchbook with You

What if you haven’t got a garden of your own? What a great reason to

head for the hills or the botanical garden, or even the “ritzy” section of

town. Pack up your drawing supplies in the trunk. For drawing al fresco,

you may want to add the following to your drawing kit as well:

➤ A stool, for sitting

➤ An easel or drawing board, for setting your pad on

➤ Clips, to hold your sketchbook in place

➤ An umbrella or hat, for shade

Whether you’re drawing in your garden or someone else’s, be aware of

place. A sense of place is a strong element in garden drawing, whatever

the view. Consider the following before you set up your stool and easel:

1. Make sure it is clear where you are. Light and shade are as im￾portant to a drawing as the objects themselves.

2. How does it feel?

➤ What is the light like?

➤ What time of day is it?

➤ Do you feel the warmth of the sun or a cool breeze, wel￾come shade on a hot day, or the briskness of fall?

The parts of a flower.

You don’t need to know

their names, but you do

need to examine them in

separate detail in order

to render them on the

page.

Artist’s Sketchbook

Al fresco, Italian for “in the

fresh air,” is the term for doing

things outside—including draw￾ing, of course.

Try Your Hand

No matter what the weather,

make your garden subject as spe￾cial as it is through all the seasons.

Stigma

Style

Pistils

Stamen

Ovary

Petal

Filament

Anther

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Chapter 15 ➤ Into the Garden, with Pencils, not Shovels

It Started with Eden

Whether the flower or the color is the focus I do not know. I do know that the flower is paint￾ed large enough to convey to you my experience of the flower and what is my experience of the

flower if it is not color.

—Georgia O’Keeffe

When it comes to flowers, a rose is not just a rose, as Gertrude Stein said, it is the rose, the

one you are looking at right this minute. Sure, it has similarities to other roses, but it also

has a detail that is all its own.

Learn to look for this singularity in all of nature. Think about individual plants as individu￾als. Lauren likes to think of them as if they are friends, especially in the spring (the season

as we write this), when she has been missing them. Then, it’s like greeting old friends and

meeting new ones.

There’s nothing like the feeling when those first crocuses and daffodils come up in the gar￾den. It’s a reminder of the cycle of life, of renewal and rebirth. No matter how utterly blue

you’ve felt all winter, seeing those first brave shoots of green push through the snow re￾minds us that summer is just around the bend.

Whether it’s springtime, summer, or autumn, you can use whatever’s blooming in your gar￾den to practice drawing flowers and leaves. This practice will help you achieve precision in

your drawing technique, as well as honing your powers of minute observation.

Try to capture the feel of the weather and the season, as well as the day itself, in your drawing.

Atmosphere!

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Part 4 ➤ Developing Drawing Skills

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Be a Botanist

Being a botanist doesn’t have to mean going back to college. You can learn a lot about

plants simply by observing them, and, when it comes to drawing, observation time is time

well spent.

1. Begin by examining the basic shapes that are familiar,

including

➤ Cones.

➤ Disks.

➤ Spheres.

➤ Trumpets.

➤ Fluted shapes.

➤ Balls.

2. How do the pistils and stamen attach to the stem? (You may

want to refer back to the drawing at the beginning of this chap￾ter to see just what and where pistils and stamen are.)

3. Count the petals. Do they appear in pairs or groups? Are they

symmetrical? How do the flowers fit on the stem?

4. Look at leaves on the stem. Are they alternately or oppositely

arranged? Look at the stem connection.

5. Get botany or gardening books to read about detail and struc￾ture if they are new to you. Just flipping through the pages will

begin to give you a better idea of what flowers are all about.

Every flower and leaf of

every plant has a shape

and detail all its own.

Try Your Hand

When drawing a new species, re￾member to look for the angles

and proportions. Each butterfly

or lizard has its own shapes, pro￾portions, coloring, and texture to

explore as you draw. Shells, par￾ticularly, have a strong line or

axis from tip to end that needs

to be seen and drawn. The myri￾ad of detail in nature is its

strength and its wonder.

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Chapter 15 ➤ Into the Garden, with Pencils, not Shovels

Work on a Blooming Stem

Okay, enough studying! It’s time to try drawing a blooming stem. For your first subject,

you’ll want to look at buds, seeds, and stems, and decide what you’d like to draw. Once

you’ve picked out a subject, use the drawing checklist that appears on the tear-out reference

card in the front of the book, and get to work.

As the season progresses, look at seeds, pods, berries, nuts, cones … anything you can find

in your garden or any other garden, and draw those, too. The more you draw, remember,

the more practice you get. Eventually, the shapes and forms will be remembered by your

hand, familiar and easy to execute.

A variety of blooming

stems.

Butterflies, Insects, and Seashells, Too

The eye that sees is the I experiencing itself in what it sees. It becomes self-aware and realizes

that it is an integral part of the great continuum of all that is. It sees things such as they are.

—Frederick Frank

Your flower drawings can include all the winged visitors to your garden and a mix of

seashells around the pots or along the paths. Chinese and Japanese nature art has always

included butterflies, insects, and seashells to compliment the flowers and foliage, and you

can do this, too. Add what you see in your garden, from butterflies and hummingbirds in

northern gardens to snakes and lizards on tropical patios.

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Part 4 ➤ Developing Drawing Skills

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Go Wild!

When you draw a leaf that has become a fragile net of veins, you are really marveling at the

wonder of nature and finding a way of capturing that fragility.

—Jill Bays

Garden drawings don’t have to be just flowers and plants. Don’t forget the insects, shells, and

butterflies. When drawing a bird or butterfly, you might want to have a good reference book

on hand to study. For precision, try copying high quality, detailed images before you venture

outdoors. This effort will enhance your nature studies when you try to capture the moment in

the wild!

The Art of Drawing

Lauren learned flower fairy tales and woods lore from her grandfather, who was an avid natural￾ist and artist. The fleeting delicacy of wildflowers and the pristine climate they thrive in is there

to be enjoyed, but should be carefully respected and protected. Don’t pick wildflowers; go out

and visit them and draw them where they live. You will both be better off for the effort.

Wildflowers are Lauren’s favorites; they have always been. They were like friends when she

was a kid, and are still. For Lauren, the best part of spring is seeing them return, waiting

for a special one, and hunting in woods or fields to find a wildflower that she hasn’t seen

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