Tulip Composition (Work in Progress)

Yesterday I noticed a small tulip appearing in the grass. We have a very soft winter in Belgium and that explains it. But it doesn't feel right to go from fall to spring without a winter.
It does cause tulip-mania and during the next few weeks I'll built up this flower composition.
I hope you enjoy the start with 3 tulips.
Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Cypress cone ~ Sigrid Frensen

Now that all paintings are finished for the SBA show in London (I framed them yesterday), I wanted to draw something small. And with pencil! After all this time working with the small brushes and watercolours I just had to do a pencil drawing. On my desk I found a small Cypress cone. I found it in Italy last year.
In a few hours I made this small drawing in my sketchbook. I love drawing pine cones and this one was nice too. I think it's because I can go really black in the shadows. I also love the shape of these cones. Anyway, here it is:

Mediterranean Cypress Cone

The drawing is 3,5 x 6 cm.

Stippled Clematis ~ Sigrid Frensen

I've been so busy lately with a lot of things. Most of them had nothing to do with botanical painting, drawing or gardening. A bad thing, although the other things had to be done too. Last week we had a week off. We went on holiday, away from home and all the things that still need to be done here. We went to museums, slept a lot, visited my parents in law and I celebrated my birthday. All in all another busy week. But this was fun.

I actually found some time to draw a bit again. It had been ages since I made my last pen and ink botanical and I really felt like doing one now. Another artist, Michael Murillo from the US, asked me if I would like to trade drawings. I saw a nude sketch he made and I was impressed. I really loved it. He wanted to give me that sketch and trade it for one of mine. I don't have a lot of sketches. At least I don't think they are worth a trade. So I thought this pen drawing could be nice for him if he liked it. He did. So I started dotting this amazing deep purple violet Clematis viticella 'Black Prince' from my mother's garden. It was so much fun and so relaxing to do. Yesterday I finished it and here's the result. I think I might stipple another drawing soon.

Akebia and Fuzzy Practise - Sigrid Frensen -

My Akebia quinata drawing is still not finished but I'll give you a nice scan of how it looks now. Here it is:

It's so nice to work with graphite again. Now I'll tell you a little about my technique because some people think it is only a very light touch. It is a bit maybe but most important is to use many different kinds of pencils. I use very hard ones (4H) and very soft ones(6B) and some in between of course. One of the most important things is to keep a sharp pencil at all times. So when I draw I have the pencil in my right hand and my manual sharpener in my left. I'm sharpening all the time.
Like in my coloured pencil drawings I layer a lot. In this way I can controle the lights and darks. To make a very smooth looking finish I use a hard pencil or I use a blending stump depending on what effect is needed. Most used tool to get a perfect drawing is my kneadable eraser. I use it all the time, to lift graphite, to add texture, to clean the paper....
Ah, and if you want to make a drawing like this too, be sure to use very smooth paper. I used Bristol for this one but there are other papers that are a bit more creamy and also very smooth.

Now, enough about that... Yesterday I had a bit of time to make a fuzzy Stachys leaf.

It's not a great botanical but I wanted to try out a fuzzy looking texture with my coloured pencils. Last year, when I tried it, I totally failed. I think now it's looking better. Not as good as I had in mind, but it's progress.

This afternoon I want to try out a technique I have in my head to make white flowers with coloured pencils. I never tried this technique so I don't know if it will work at all. In my mind it works very well... now let's see if it works in reality ;)

Tulip | Orchid | Akebia - Sigrid Frensen

It has been too long since I've posted something here. But.... I've been busy. I went on a botanical painting course of five days in Leiden. My tutor was Anne Marie Evans and I learnt a lot that week. We painted tulips. I guess tutors from abroad want to see tulips when they come to Holland. Last year, Valerie Oxley started her course with (yellow) tulips. I just hope this is not becoming a trend. I like tulips, don't get me wrong, I like them in a garden or a vase. Not to paint them. But I think I'm repeating myself, I told you all this before, didn't I?

Anyway.... I painted a botanical tulip, Tulipa turkestanica. It didn't make things easier for me (this one had five flowers instead of one and was almost white) but it looked far more interesting that most of the other tulips. Well it did for me, don't know about the other students ;) Here's what the painting looked like at the end of the course:

It's not finished yet, it needs roots and more details but you get the idea. It looks a bit old-fashioned, like it's from the 18th century, like Redouté or something. Very different to what I'm used to.

After the course I painted in "De Keukenhof" for a day with some other painters of the Dutch Society of Botanical Artists. We sat in the Orchid pavilion, surrounded by hundreds of tourists from all over the globe, stuck or not stuck in the Netherlands by the Icelandic vulcano ashes.
So I painted my first ever orchid flower. Many botanical artists paint orchids. I didn't and I don't think I'll paint those cultivated orchids again. I just don't like them. I like the wild ones that grow here in the Netherlands but they don't look at all like the ones shown in the pavilion in Lisse.

The week after I had to go to the opening of the Siebold exhibition in the Siebold House in Leiden. A wonderful exhibition with wonderful paintings made by the Dutch Society of Botanical Artists. My Hydrangea drawing is exhibited there too. Also a lot of old herbaria and floriligia are shown. Really nice to see the old things from the Siebold period next to the modern works of art.

I made this in Photoshop to show you the difference between the periods. The old painting was made by a Japanese painter and the Hydrangea on the left is a dried specimen that Siebold brought to Europe. It's a different variety than the one that I painted but I don't think he would have minded that :P

Now I'm back home and I decided to start a pencil drawing. It has been too long since I made my last graphite pencil botanical. It's of Akebia quinata, also a Siebold introduction. It has been on my wishlist for some years and it's flowering now in my front yard. I love this climber. The leaves are very interesting, the flowers are maybe even more interesting. But the colour of the flower is wonderful..... but I decided to do a graphite drawing anyway :D Maybe I'll make a coloured thing some other year. Now I just had to do a pencil drawing. So this is a WIP. I'll post it again when it's finished.

Don't Bug me! ~ Sigrid Frensen

I don't feel like painting crocusses and snowdrops now. I wanted to do something colourful yet not a big project.... A friend of mine sugested to make some insects. I never did that before. Not seriously anyway. So I thought I'd try painting some bugs with watercolours. It didn't work out at all. So, instead of throwing it in the bin I saved it with my coloured pencils. Here's my first little bug:

This is Chrysolina fastuosa. In normal English: the Dead Nettle Leaf Beetle. It's a very common beetle in the Netherlands and oh so pretty. It was hard to draw the metalic shine and the little dimples on the shield. I must add that this image is huge compared to the original drawing. The drawing is made realsize (=very small = 1,5 cm = about 0,6") So in this scan it might seem that it has got hairs, in the small drawing it just has little dimples :))

I liked this so much I decided to do another bug today. A bigger one and maybe one of my favourites. Not because it's so beautiful (besides it's hairdo it really isn't that pretty) but because I always look forward to seeing the first in my garden. Always in May.

It's the May Beetle or Cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha). I made mine 3 cm (a bit over 1 inch) tall (they can be a bit bigger though). Not very happy with the texture on the brown shields. It looks too smooth... and it really is not. Never mind.... I had fun and there is a lot more white paper to be filled with creepy crawlers...

And then there were two... ~ Sigrid Frensen

Two Braeburn apples because one apple looked a bit lonely... I added another one. I think it looks better now.
For the record, it's coloured pencil on Fabriano Designo 5 Liscia (10 x 11 cm)

I think pears will be next...

Hydrangea and one apple ~ Sigrid Frensen

Ok, I know, I'm a bad blogger, sorry for that. But to make it up here's an update. I was so busy these last few weeks to get my Hydrangea finished in time. And guess what... it's FINISHED!!!!! Yay for me :) I sent it to the National Herbarium this week and it went straight to the photographer from there. It will be photographed for the flyer and catalogue or something. Anyway, I managed to scan the big drawing (in 4 parts) and after merging the scans together, here's the result of all the hard labour:

I was so relieved when the drawing was gone I just had to do something fun and easy. So I bought a very nice red apple. Yesterday I sat down and in one afternoon (ok, and part of the evening) I finished the "Braeburn Apple" with coloured pencils. It was so good to do something with a simple shape and such rich, deep colours.

Don't know what I'll do now. Maybe I'll add one or two apples to that first one. It seems a bit lonely on the paper. And doing it was great fun, really....
On the other hand I'd love to do something with my watercolours again too. But whatever it will be, it's going to be small and fun :)

Fungi Family - Sigrid Frensen

A few weeks ago I was in the beautiful forest of Roden. There were thousands of mushrooms, so many different kinds and all so pretty. I made some photos so I could maybe draw them at home. Bertus was with me so I couldn't sketch there. I picked this one for a drawing. It's not very detailed. I just don't have enough time and energy to do that. I made it on (bad) paper with coloured pencils and soft pastels.

Quince - Sigrid Frensen

Yesterday Michiel Thomas, a friend I met on Flickr, came to my house to buy one of my drawings. He brought me a large branch from his Quince he has in his garden. On the branch were 3 quinces and I decided to draw one of them. I first made the sketch and today I added the colours. Here it is :)

Hydrangea Update

I'm still working on my Hydrangea drawing for the von Siebold project. It is so difficult. Really hard. I made some flowers first. Hard!!!

Then I thought it would be good to add some leaves. Harder!!!! And last weekend I was at the point where I had to make a big decision about the composition by placing a third flowerhead in the drawing. Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh!!!!!

And it's not over yet... I have to do a lot of work still on all three flowerheads, I need to add even more leaves and the stems of course....
I've had some fights with this drawing, it has been the most difficult drawing I ever made.

I'm sure there will be more fights (and some more tears to go with it too I suppose) over the next couple of weeks. But I'm happy to say that I'm finally getting the feeling it might be a nice piece when I'll be finished.

Currants

I have a lot of currants (Ribes rubrum) in my garden right now. And I finally got to draw them this year. Previous years the Blackbirds where faster than me and ate my subject. Well, not the white ones but they really enjoy to hang around the red berries.
I'm still working hard on my Hydrangea drawing so this was a nice interlude. I made the white ones first, as a birthday present for a good friend of mine. It was made in one afternoon and it felt very good doing this. I decided to also draw the red ones. More difficult but less beautiful. Not only my drawing but also the real thing. The white berries are more transparent and therefor much more interesting. And drawing something transparent and white is a big challenge. But I think I did okay...

Butterfly time

Arctic Blue on Shooting Star, photo reference used with permission of Sharon Wander

For several years, I’ve done volunteer artwork in the form of a black and white drawing for the North American Butterfly Association’s annual count report. Most of my drawings have been done from my own reference photos coupled with personal observation, but this year I used a reference drawing from a photo taken by the count report editor, Sharon Wander. I did this in charcoal and ink on coquille board. I guess I was in the mood to learn about a new butterfly and a new medium!

All of the knowledge I learned from drawing butterflies in the past came into play for this one since I didn’t have the luxury of seeing this in person. In a way, it made me especially attentive to the similarities and differences the Arctic Blue has to our Florida butterflies.

I thought I’d share this with you since summertime is butterfly time for many of us. If you’d like to learn more about the North American Butterfly Association (NABA), go online to their website.

Von Siebold Project

At the moment I'm working hard on a drawing for the Von Siebold Exhibition which will be held in Het Von Sieboldhuis in Leiden. It's an exhibition about the plants Von Siebold brought from Japan to Europe. Drawings from that era will hang next to botanical drawings made by artists from the Dutch Society of Botanical Artists. During this exhibition there will also be a special walk around the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden where a lot of his plants were planted when Von Siebold returned to Europe.

The artists from the society got a long list of plants in the Hortus. We all could pick one or two plants to draw. I picked the Hydrangea. It's a shrub I think I would never draw for fun. Too much flowers I guess. But this is a nice oppertunity to try something different. So I thought...

This Hydrangea is so difficult and it's a huge struggle. The sketching was easy and fast. I drew 3 twigs with flowers. The next stage was to make a good composition on the paper. The size of the image is the same for all artists (about 32 x 40 cm).

I tried out a little flower first to choose the right colours. That was ok. Now I'm working on my first big flowerhead on the bottom left. It is more blue than the little practice flower I did before. And after a few flowers the colours looked too dirty for me.

Now I'm trying a different approach: colours first, shadows later. I hope it will work.
Sorry for the bad pictures, I can't scan this and have to use my little camera and Photoshop. I will scan the end result though :)

If it will finish and not end up in the dustbin.

Rupert(ina) the cat

Rupert the cat, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

Rupertina the cat

Blogger's note: Originally I thought Rupert was a male cat, but "he" is indeed a "she" and I've edited my post to reflect this.

While she isn’t technically a “nature subject,” I’m including her here because she’s now a part of the environment, like it or not. Rupert is not our cat. I’m not sure she belongs to anyone, but she likes to visit us here at work about every two days for dry kibble, water, and a belly rub.

She’s a friendly cat, used to people, and especially seeks out girls and women. She startles easily, though, and is wary and street smart. Someone cared enough once to bond with her and to give her attention…on her visits he seems to crave touch as well as food.

She may live here in the industrial park in someone’s workshop, or we may just be on her list of places to wander in the early evening. I suspect she was abandoned – possibly by a family forced to move in these tough times.

~ Elizabeth Smith, Naples, FL, USA

Honeybells project

The last couple of days I've worked hard on my big Nectaroscordum drawing. Three of the flowerheads are now, more or less, finished. It's difficult and hard work. I made some photos again to show you what it looks like now. First the entire sheet:

You can see that the right flower is now finished. I've started to draw the buds on the left too. And they are also nearly done. The third is now work in progress and I hope, at the end of the week to start with the last flower. I'm not sure about the placement of the stems but there is nothing I can do about that now....

Cherry

This morning I saw a beautiful painting of some cherries a contact of mine (nas740) made in watercolour. This afternoon I had a bowl of cherries on my drawing table and thought I'd give it a go. Here is just one. But it was fun to do because the great dark deep colours and when the drawing was finished it was tasty too :))

Nectaroscordum project

I'm trying to work on a project now. It's a bud of the Nectaroscordum siculum in my garden. The bud is opening and the flowers start to come out and bend down gracefully. It's a beautiful process. I did make a small try (well actually not small, it's 1:1) of a bud first:

I made drawings of five stages. I placed them next to each other on the Fabriano and now I have to colour them. It takes a long time and I am very busy doing a lot of other things as well.

But I alsmost finished the first part. The open flower (yes I'm working backwards). The flower was still in my garden and the buds were all gone. I made a lot of photos from the buds so I can work from that. But as long as I had the real thing I could use that. So that's why I started with the last one in the row.

Red Panda

Red Panda
Originally uploaded by Ricky Holtman

This is the cousin to the GIANT PANDA, big and black and white. The Red Panda is always confused with the Fox or Raccoon family but it's not either. He travels the same bamboo forest as his cousin. You'll find him in the Himalayas and two provinces in China. The zoo is where I find them since I don't go to the Himalayas on a frequent basis. Hopefully this quick ink pen and watercolor sketch will deliver a nice painting some day. Enjoy...Addios
Ricky

Rosa glauca

The last two days I was working on a drawing of one of my favourite roses. Rosa glauca. It's a botanical rose with small pink flowers. The leaves are spectacular: grey green with a bit of dark red in the veins and stems. In the autumn the rose has a lot of dark red hips. It's wonderful. I made a drawing of the hips two years ago. I will probably do another one this year or next year since I've sold the first.

The rose is flowering only for a very short period and I had to work fast for this drawing. This morning yesterday's flower had dropped it's petals. I'm happy with the flower and I think the pink resembles the true colour very well. Also the buds and the stem (or branch) are very good I think. The leaves however are a bit of a problem. I don't like doing leaves and the colour of these leaves is very difficult. I managed to draw two leaves and I hope the pink of the flower and the red of the branch will distract the attention from the leaves a bit.

Oh, and about the rose... it's called Rosa glauca, which means Red-leaved rose. The front of the leaf is grey- green but the backside of the leaf is a bit reddish. The veins are red too. It is a species of rose native to the mountains of central and southern Europe.