Category Archive

What I’ve been drawing for the past few days.

The orchid in my office at church was in this lovely state this morning, with about 20 buds and two flowers already opened. I drew it for a long as I could before I had to begin working, with two results : this sketch and the knowledge that I have to paint this flower. The morning light was so lovely that I’m going to take a photo tomorrow at the same time so I can paint from it at home without having to schlep this sweetie back and forth.

Botanical shapes call to me all the time. I don’t know why, and don’t really want to dissect it, but they do. This orchid that has been on our kitchen table for weeks, for example. Another orchid, in my office, has over a dozen buds, and I’m hoping I’ll have time to draw it later this week, before they all open.

Here are the last few days’ stages of the same drawing.

I don’t quite want to call it done yet, even though I’m playing with other things as well.

Drawing only 10 minutes or so means slow progress, but I’m enjoying myself, and the geometries that keep appearing in this structure the more time I spend with it.

I started drawing this with pens the other day, since I had gray and black gel pens and thought, hey, basically two colors here, I could draw it in just those two. But the lack of erasability made me anxious; I wanted a pencil. So here’s tonight’s start.

I just loved this structure (probably part of a substation, Joy says), and had to take a couple of pictures so I could draw it.

I had a rather thrilling experience as I was flipping through my phone’s photos to find the reference photo for this drawing. I saw a photo I had taken of the half-finished drawing and thought for a few moments that it was the original. Hyperrealism is seldom, if ever, my goal, but to have successfully conveyed something so elusive is deeply satisfying. I have learned a lot about water through this process.

This was what I worked on on Wednesday and Thursday, and it is now finished.