Hello everyone,
Thank you for your support, I’m glad I’m not talking on my own here, but also have some audience there. Today I’ll try to explain my line drawing process step by step.
First step, Pick up your subject!
There are things you need to consider in this step. Be aware of your talent and capability of doing things. If you start with a subject which is extremely hard for you, you can end up feeling frustrated and quit drawing before improving even a bit. Therefore, instead of picking the prettiest material with bunch of curves and details, go with a plant which has less complexity.
Other thing is finding a material that will inspire you. You need to feel excited about your subject. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how hard you push, it takes longer time to finish what you started or maybe you won’t even finish it.
When you find your inspiring subject, inspect it really well. Look at it from different angles. Look where the different parts of the plant are starting from and where they are going. How are they attached? What angle it looks the best? Will you include all the leaves? Will you draw all the flowers? Or is it better to cut some of them off to prevent the mess and confusion on your picture?
Second step, Set up the drawing environment!
Clean your table! Wash your hands! Clean environment is the best for starting a new drawing. This is what I prefer at least. If you are not working on a dry leave or branch, you need to put your subject into a bottle, jar, or whatever works for you which are filled with water. Then place your plant in it and put it right in front of you with the angle you desired. It helps to put a white panel behind the plant to focus on your subject better by separating it from the mess of the room (you can simply do it by folding a big white paper from the middle, you can partially see mine on the picture below).
Third step, Prepare your equipment!
Paper, pencil, eraser, ruler and pencil sharpener. They are main utensils that I use but it can be increased in number like many professionals do. You can use several different pencils or use sandpaper instead of pencil sharpener vice versa. I am sure there are also other millions of things that I am not even aware of but these basic materials are enough for a start. However, for my technique, I use a protractor. Therefore, this is one of the materials I won’t ever give up using.
Fourth step, Scaling/Measuring!
This is the part where the things are getting harder and confusing because we need to deal with perspective in this step. I have never been in an art school, so I can’t make good definitions for perspective or depth perception. However these are really important when you try to achieve realistic pictures because they give us the visual ability to perceive the world in 3D. You need to reflect this to your paper by scaling and measuring several times.
What I do is take the measurements from the plant by my protractor without touching the plant from the same distance every time (e.g extending my arm for every measurement). Another main thing is closing one eye for every measurement. When you look with both eyes, everything overlaps and becomes more confusing. However, you need to do these while you are working with your material from a distance. If you are holding your plant in your hand or putting right next to you, just go ahead and take the measurements by your ruler or protractor by touching your plant.
What you need to do for seeing the distances between different parts of the plant, you need to imagine your subject in several geometrical shapes. Lines, triangles, spheres, circles and vice versa. They help to measure the distances. I put a picture below to make it clear;
After taking the angles, I am keeping the angle, and placing it to my paper and putting little dots for each end of the protractor. Then if I feel confident about my measure and the angle, I draw the part that I am working on. Otherwise, I measure again.
Fifth step, Complete your drawing!
Fourth step can be a long process and be frustrating. Try not to put too much pressure on your pencil while drawing, because you may end up ruining your paper by eraser. Make it visible enough. I heard people doing the initial lines with light blue pencil, than going over with black graphite. I never tried, but if you want, just go ahead. When you are satisfied with the proportions of your plant, make your lines even more visible, and get rid of the old traces.
Last step, Take your paper into your hand and smile! Well done!
Tips: Deciding a center and drawing a faint line to your paper may make it easier to see the distances of the parts of the subject and help taking the measurements better. (If the plant is tilted, your center line will also be tilted, don’t forget to consider this.)
Using a ruler and a protractor interchangeably helps a lot. You don’t need to stick on only one of them.
It is good to go back and forth to take the angles several times not to make mistakes.
If you have hard times to imagine triangles, work on drawing smaller or less complex materials first instead of flowers.
Don’t feel sad if your piece doesn’t turn out well, this is a process you improve by experience. Keep working on it.
Don’t take my words as rules, art is something personal. Feel free to find your own style and way to do it!
Thanks for your time reading this article. If you think something is missing here, please leave a comment or lead me to a link that I can read about. I hope you enjoyed these instructions. Feel free to comment and stay tuned for the next assignment!
Art in Nature 