Botanical
drawing differs from most other types of art by its emphasis
on accuracy. Beautiful illustrations of this type have adorned
pages in herbals and books on botany for centuries. This useful
primer shows the artist how to go about producing this type
of work through projects and using easily obtainable materials.
Graphite pencils are the tools you require to tackle the two
exercises and ten projects in this book. A nice touch is that
everything in the book is drawn using them, including the
pictures of what you need to buy. This is not much (you probably
already own most of it), so you can start straight away by
organizing your workspace and then “taking a line for
a walk” and getting limbered up for some drawing. Learn
about tone and various mark-making techniques such as cross-hatching,
and look at a drawing where each pencil type (H to 2B) has
been labelled. Each project is very thorough, showing in captioned
stages how to first draw the outline and then add the shading
and other details. The author encourages the student to observe
carefully, and to this end there is a short section on plant
structure, including labelled diagrams and information about
gathering subjects for drawing. Subjects for the projects
include fruit and vegetables as well as grasses and flowers
so a wide range of shapes and plant types are covered. Topics
as diverse as composition, working in the field or from photographs
and plenty of good advice in the form of “field notes”
are all covered. Anybody keen on having a go at this type
of work ought to find this book useful, although it is not
a volume for total beginners on how to draw; rather it is
aimed at the artist who wants to try something new and already
knows the basics. A good grounding in a subject sparsely covered
in art primers.
If you cannot find a good range of drawing materials locally
try www.searchpress.com for a list of suppliers.
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