First Leaf Haiku

First Leaf Haiku, a photo by Teri DC on Flickr.

Autumn leaves are so beautiful in their crinkled and wrinkled state. They bring out the poet in me.

I guess it is no surprise that I sketched this in ink....

and wrote a Haiku:

The first leaf of fall

Greeted me early one day

Gently floating down

Magnolia macrophylla

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I took a workshop this weekend with Lara Call Gastinger and painted this Magnolia macrophylla leaf. I've discovered a bit of a passion for botanical art but I did sketch this in my book first. This magnolia is huge. Some of its leaves are about 3 feet long and the blossoms are gigantic. This tree in in the Wilderness Walk at Historic Kenmore Plantation in Fredericksburg, VA (where I work). The tree is surrounded by other huge specimens and has to fight for sunlight. As a result the blossoms are often near the top of the tree and all we can see are the undersides. Last year, one bloomed low enough to see and it knocked me out. The common name for the is the Umbrella Tree and for good reason. It almost seems bizarre. I used watercolor on Fabriano Hot Press paper. The leaf and painting of it are about 16 inches long (tall). I painted it horizontally but when someone turned it during the critique, we all decided it was better this way.

Sycamore leaf ~ Elizabeth Smith

Sycamore leaf, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

This leaf is from my recent trip to Copeland, Florida to draw and paint the Bula Baptist Mission church. There was a small stand of trees nearby, and I picked up some of the fallen leaves to paint later. Most of the fallen leaves were monotonously brown in color, but this particular one still had some green turning to a warm reddish brown (later it faded to an even medium brown color).

I used two pigments to create a brown and to liven up and exaggerate the colors I saw: Daniel Smith Sap Green and Cadmium Red. I added the veins later with a dark-brown watercolor pencil. I’m still testing the Strathmore Windpower Watercolor sketchbook, which is the paper I used for this study. The spiral bound 6x9 book is loaded with 15 sheets of 140 lb. cold-press paper and is a good value for the cost (under $10.00).

Sycamore trees are not common in Southwest Florida – they’re almost always planted as part of a landscaped home or institution. They are more common in the wild in north Florida, and are trees that prefer floodplains, although they adapt well to other habitats.


Their distinctive features: out-sized, broad palmate leaves; thin plate-like bark in mottled cream and brown colors, and a large height and spreading leaf crown. I’ve found the leaves to be great subjects for study because of the strong veins and interesting shapes they take when drying.

Interesting facts about sycamores in Florida:

•We have two co-champion trees, one in Orange County and one in Alachua County. Champion trees are documented as the largest representative tree of their species. If you’re a fan of big trees, you may want to visit these sites online:
American Forests
Native Tree Society (scroll down to BigTree/Tall Tree listings in the left navigation pane).


•We have sycamores growing here that traveled to the moon! Well, the seeds did, anyway. Hundreds of various species of tree seeds traveled on the Apollo 14 mission to the moon on January 31, 1971 as part of a joint NASA/USFS project. The seeds were germinated upon return to earth, and seedlings ended up at the University of Gainesville, The Kennedy Space Center, and Cascades Park in Tallahassee.

~ Elizabeth Smith, Naples, Florida, USA

"Leaf and Shadow" - Teri Casper

Illustration Friday 'Beneath'
Originally uploaded by Teri DC

I picked this leaf up on my walk because it just looked interesting. I sketched it when I got home. Notice the shadow 'beneath' the leaf?
I used this sketch for Illustration Friday's theme word of 'beneath'.

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 ;)

Leaf Spread - Carolyn Pappas

I have a certain moleskine that has been ongoing since 2005 and it is really irking me that I haven't finished it off yet. I never really enjoyed working in it, and I just want to get it finished so that I can move onto other sketchbooks that I like better. So this weekend I decided I am going to fill up the last ten or so pages quickly to get it over with. I went out into the garden yesterday and made these line drawings of some of the different leaves that can be found there. My family spends a lot of time working on our garden, and we even keep our garage heated all winter to keep our mini fig and orange trees alive. I guess being Greek and all, we like our patio to look like the Mediterranean even in Massachusetts.

Turned Leaves

I promissed to show you some more results from my botanical drawing course. On Tuesday we did a practice with leaves. How to draw and paint twisted, folded and turned leaves. Most of the ladies in the course made a drawing/painting of a hosta or Persicaria leaf. I was the only one drawing this leaf. The woman who brought this leaf to the course told me it was a Helianthus leaf. But I have big doubts about that. But it doesn't matter very much. It's only a practice after all.

Greens are difficult and leaves can be so very, very hard to draw well. Actually I admire artists that paint a lot of foliage. To paint one or two beautiful leaves is great of course. But to paint a whole bunch of them and do them perfectly.... sigh..... I just don't have the patience to do that.

Anyway... Here's the drawing. Coloured pencil again. And I must say that I'm pretty pleased with it. The fade-away distant colours just happened. I didn't think too much about that.

I had some trouble with the pencils though. The tutor, Valerie Oxley, brought some pencils to the course. I could use them if I wanted to. A nice way to try out some other brands. I tried some greens from the Derwent Coloursoft series. I wish I hadn't. I picked a beautiful Dark Green colour. A super colour for the shadow parts in this leaf. But when I burnished some of it with my white pencil the green turned into a viridian/ cobalt blue greenish colour. Very bright. I tried to get it all out of the leaf, but as you can see... here and there I couldn't. Never mind. It was a good practice and now I'm very sure I don't like the Derwent coloursoft pencils.