More Flower Sketches...

"Anemone and Bluebells Sketch", 4"x10", Watercolor on Winsor & Newton Cotman 140# Watercolor Sketchbook

Very busy recently... Only had enough time to do some small sketches using a couple of minutes here and there. The first page showing here is done on Winsor & Newton Cotman 140# paper. It is a lovely white paper and is recommend by Siriol Sherlock, a botanical artist and flower painter I admire greatly. Wet-in-wet is easy on this paper, and granulate color shows a lot of interesting effects. Glaze is also easy, without needing to worry too much about lifting the underlying colors. I like how flower colors appear more vibrant on this very white paper, and it isn't too expensive, perfect for using as a sketch book. I did the line sketches and a little bit shading in front of the flowers, and only added colors later from memory. Good exercise for observation skills indeed, and I am suprised that I could remember them so well back home. Learnign to paint is also the process of learning to observe and truely "see". I start to get this idea more and more now... I might go back to the site I did the sketch and add a few details to the bluebells, we'll see.

The pansies were merely practicing brush strokes without drawing first and is not done from a real flower, only a copy from examples out of a book. It did allow me to try out another sketchbook I have bought for a while and did not have chance to use yet --- the "Liberte" sketchbook from Arches. I do not know whether this sketchbook is availble in the state or not now --- I got it from someone on eBay selling legacies from his parents. I loved this paper --- the texture is slightly rougher than cold-press Arches paper, and color is off-white, but it holds washes so beautifully! The paper is only 80#, very thin, yet because is is made of 50% cotton and 50% man-made fiber, it stays perfectly flat with small-sized wet washes like this, do not buckle even a little! What's more, the way it takes wet strokes and keep staying wet for an extending amount of time makes it so much superior compare to the Strathmore Aquarius II paper, also made out of sythetic fiber...

"Pansy Sketch", 4"x4", Watercolor on Arches Liberte 80# Watercolor Sketchbook

More Flower Sketches

"Primrose Sketch", 5"x8", Watercolor on Moleskin Watercolor Sketchbook

I did these little sketches outdoors in the Lithy Botanical Garden in Peoria, Illinois. The flowers there were really lovely! But unfortunately, there is no shade around these beautiful little primroses... I really fell in love with the pink-violet color and the cup-shape formed by their delicate little pedals, and decided I had to sketch them despite the blinding sunlight reflected off the white paper. They sun also dried the washes much faster than usual and I just frantically kept on painting back into the half-dried washes -- surprisingly, the results did not turn out to be too bad and the puddles of paints formed lovely textures describing the subtle shades of pedals. They are not botanically accurate descriptions of the flowers, but I kind of liked how the paint and paper interacted with each other on the moleskin paper, and decided to try more of this way of working in the future.

I also tested a new box of Creatacolor Aqua Monolith watercolor pencils I just got from eBay, and was quite happy with the results. On moleskin paper, watercolor pencils can capture a certain degree of detail but still not as much as on bristol board or hot-pressed watercolor paper, due to the slight tooth of the moleskin book. But when I wet the drawings with a brush, the color also did not lift as much as on smoother paper, and redistributes more controllably with each brush-stroke. After it's dried, I decided that the colors were not as saturated as I'd like, so I painted back into the pedals with some more watercolor. Can you guess which two flowers are painted this way, and which two are entirely painted with watercolor? ^__^

After finished with the little primrose sketch, I tried to tackle this really gorgeous lily -- its inner pedals have really beautiful transition from the golden-yellow in the center to the deep purple-bronze color in the periphery. I found it a bit hard to control edge quality on the moleskin paper when trying to paint this lily the more traditional way (layering, wet into wet, blending, etc.). In the end I started to get a hang of how to do more controlled wet-in-wet strokes on this paper, but still feel it is not the best surface to paint this way. For more loose, sketchy effect, this is a good surface, but not if you want total control over it -- I still like it for what it is though. The colors got a little muddy on this lily sketch due to repeated rewetting, but I cherished the drawing -- I chose a really hard angle to draw it and felt really happy to be able to capture the wield curve of the pedals viewed from that angle -- and decided to post it anyway.

These are my first efforts to draw and paint flowers "en plein air" and I did learn a great deal from the efforts, as well as had loads of fun. Definitely should do it more often...

"Lily Sketch", 5"x8" (Page Size), Watercolor & Watercolor Pencils on Moleskin Watercolor Sketchbook

Flower Sketches

"Honeysuckles Sketch", 5"x8", Watercolor on Moleskin Watercolor Sketchbook

After yesterday's rain, all flowers seem to thrive in sunlight today. I went out and took loads of reference photos of Lilies --- white, off-which, light flesh color, bright cool and warm yellow, burning orange and dark brown madder alizarin ones. It is officially the Lily season here now, and I am surprised I have never notices there are so many different colored Lilies! Drawing and painting really open your eyes to tiny treasures of life, make you appreciate and enjoy to the maximum extent.

The air is full of the pleasent scent from Honeysuckles near my house. They are everywhere -- near the fency, around the old trees and even extending to my balcony! I love the sweet but subtle aroma. It is the definition of a full summer for me since childhood. We use to pick the sliver and gold flowers and season them in a can of honey, which is later used to make cold tea. It is supposed to cool down the heat accumulated in the body due to the fierce summer, and I loved it! One of the many myths of acient Chinese herb medicine... I went to the backyard and sketched some honeysuckles today, and was totally suprised by the elegant curvatures of the pedal of these tiny flowers. They are joyfully dancing in the light breeze beneath the leaf shadows.

The sketch is done on a 5"x8" moleskin watercolor sketchbook. I like how the paper reacted after the first wash. It is a little difficult to control wet-in-wet effect on this sketchbook paper, since it has slightly less tooth compared to most cold-pressed watercolor paper. But the random texture created by dropping water into a still-damp wash is really amazing on this paper. It is easy to take on site and dries relatively fast, which makes it a really good choice for sketching with watercolor outdoors. Off to sketch more, and maybe will post them tonight...