Activity

The kneaded eraser is cracking me up. This branch is off to a great start! I can tell that you really observed this closely while drawing it – nice@
One of the things that can be difficult with detailed subjects like this is keeping the 3D form. Sometimes we need to push the shadows and highlight a bit to create that 3 dimensional illusion, even when we really don’t see those shadows and highlights on our subject. So, although you aren’t seeing much of a highlight in your reference photo, you still want to put a bit of a highlight in there, just like you would when toning a cylinder. On something matte like this branch, you probably wouldn’t want to leave that highlight as the white of the paper, but you still want that highlight area (approx 1/4 of the way in from the left) to be quite light. You can try lifting out that area with your eraser a bit. Be careful with cast shadows – we try not to make them too important in botanical art. You want them to be very subtle. If you have Wendy’s “The Joy of Botanical Drawing” book, on page 43 there is a good example of a subtle cast shadow. You can go into this drawing with a kneaded eraser and try lifting out a lot of it. There is another common cast shadow mistake that I’m seeing here is a thin white “halo” between the subject and the cast shadow. You want that shadow to start right at the edge of the subject, and then quickly and gradually fade it out, getting lighter and lighter until it just fades into the white of the paper.

I would love to see you draw another branch, pushing that 3D form by exaggerating the highlight and form shadow a bit. If you need the kneaded eraser to keep the branch from moving, you might want to use a smaller piece and keep it hidden, or just imagine it’s not there when you draw it so that it doesn’t distract from that beautiful branch. Can’t wait to see more!!