Today I set forth into my garden and cut myself 2 branches of mallow with flowers and buds, and 1 branch of leaves (because they were really big and looked different than the others). I put them all in a vase (did you know that mallow stems have teensy tiny thorns? you don't even see them - until they STICK YOU!) with water and went into my studio.
I figured that the drawing was not a sketch and so I pulled out some decent quality drawing paper and taped it to a drawing board. I pulled out my notes from Wednesday's reading of Chapter 4 in "The Art of Botanical Painting". After some deliberation, I turned on my desk light and tried to orient my flower arrangement to an appealing style.
My notes said that I was to take copious measurements of the flower (vertical x horizontal), the stem, the leaves, and the flower centres. They didn't say what grade of pencil to use, so I checked the book. I was surprised to learn that it recommended using a mechanical pencil with 0.3mm leads. I don't have a 0.3mm mech pencil, so I pulled out my lowest - a 0.5mm. It was weird drawing with a mechanical pencil again. I haven't drawn with a mech pencil in a very long time and it took some time to get used to it again.
The book said to divide the page in half horizontally and to place the flower(s) in the lower part of the top half. Also, try not to draw with broken lines, but with long continuous strokes (unless you are hatching or cross-hatching of course).
After about an hour of measuring, re-measuring, drawing, erasing, and a lot of squinting, I gave up for the day. My head was threatening to burst with all the extra effort and eye-strain. I expected there to be a learning curve in regards to the technique, but I wasn't expecting so much demand on me physically. Hopefully my efforts will improve next time!
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