Last week, in Exercise on How to Draw a Flower, we thought about ellipses. This week we’ll get a feel for connecting the stem to the ellipse / blossom.
Chrysanthemum buds opening - If you buy a potted plant, you can see all the stages at once. I bought one at the supermarket today and broke off a few buds to study.
how to draw flowers part ll - feeling the relationship between the stem and the blossom
gerber daisies to study - double click to enlarge.
As a flower pushes up from the ground, its stem become longer, stronger, and wider. All the food and drink it needs is carried through this growing stem. If all goes well, the tiny bud that begins to show at its tip will enlarge and open bit by bit revealing the mature flower in all its glory.
All that dynamism can be (over) simplified with the concept of a stick stuck to the middle of an ellipse.
If you get that part right, you will have a believable flower. And once you get that part, you can make each flower unique and expressive.
It helps to draw the areas that you can’t see (note the diagram above). Work as if the flower was transparent. If you draw the stem right up through the middle of the blossom, you are more likely to connect the two the right way. You can always erase those lines later. Completing the movement of a line by drawing as if things were transparent while you position them will create a strong sense of form, and both you and your viewers will be able to feel the life force that moves up and through the plant.
Assignment:
1. Watch the video below (made by Vladimir Vorobyov from Astana city, Kazakhstan).
2. Draw Gerber daisies (can’t miss their ellipses!).
Gerber Daisies to Draw and Paint
This video is stunning! Next time more you, OK!
Hi Doris, Glad you love the video. it is NOT one that I did, I hope I didn’t mislead. I will go back and write that in the post once I find the creator’s name. It is one that has been going around in emails lately. I believe it was created by a man from Kazakhstan.
I believe that drawing and painting flowers is restorative to the artist’s soul and just plain fun. Thank you for explaining how to make really believeable flowers. I’m looking forward to the iris!
I couldn’t agree more about drawing and painting flowers being restorative to the soul. Just a few minutes of total focus on a flower can have so much healing power nad turn a day around!
I think painting a flower is like getting to know a person. It almost seemed as if the flowers were “people”… as if waking up, or being asleep sitting up and then the flower discovers that something was worth waking up for.
I feel as though many would-be artists are still asleep and haven’t discovered how much enfolds and unfolds when showing up at the easel. Some flower buds don’t open, it is true. Why? Maybe too afraid that the mark one wants to make just might not be brilliant or well executed, and worse yet, that the marks won’t look like a flower.
I like the shyness of some of those buds in the video…and others are so gradual in giving us their magic. Others just joyfully “go for it.”
Which kind of flower do you CHOOSE to be today. It is a choice, isn’t it?