*Credit: Image by David Gunter Jackson.*
August is here and I’ve been finding myself cramming some drawing and painting into my free time as much as possible. Maybe it’s because I feel that the time is passing by quickly and each day feels exactly the same on the island. But I do know that my creative energy hasn’t been as strong lately (despite the last burst) and I feel like I’m closer to finishing my personal challenge of completing four drawings in one year.
Either way, this drawing wasn’t based on the various subjects scattered around the island. I wanted to take a break from doing that and find a subject on the internet to draw. I wanted to do another flower, but instead of picking a simple flower, I went with a pink lotus. The one you see at the top of this post is the one I selected after looking through a bunch of them.
For sketching the outline, I decided to use my F pencil since I’ve never really used it before. It did very well on the paper and I was able to sketch out an outline for the flower. It wasn’t easy since the lotus wasn’t entirely blooming and some of the petals overlapped each other.
I mixed it up a bit for the shading part by using my 2B, 4B, and 6B pencils. These pencils are very dark and I used a light touch for the first part of shading. My goal for this drawing was to make it look like the shading gave off the details and shape of the lotus instead of the outline I drew earlier. I also worked slowly to get the results I wanted and it was paying off the more time I dedicated to it.
By the time I got to the darker areas, the drawing was nearly done, but I wasn’t going to leave it flat-looking. I finished up the darker areas with the 4B and 6B pencils, added my signature and date at the bottom right corner and declared the drawing complete!
This is another drawing I’m very satisfied with. I’m noticing that realism combined with letting shading create the shapes of the subjects is the approach I choose with my drawings. It just feels natural to me and it creates the results I want. So I’ll continue to use this approach for my future drawings.
le fleur artsy 