Today’s prompt was to describe a challenge. So I am going to offer an illustrated challenge for you, which is to draw a flower in pencil.
Materials needed:
number 2 pencil (also known as HB), eraser, pencil sharpener, paper
You are going to start with a blank sheet of paper. Unlined paper is best, but you can draw on any paper.
Your first step will be to draw an outline of one or more flowers. The flowers that I’m drawing have a round center and six petals. You’re going to want to draw your flowers fairly lightly on the page.
I like to draw an odd number of flowers on my page. The reason for that is that it’s asymmetical. I have found that a symmetrical drawing, with an even number of objects in the drawing, makes the image look static, while asymmetry gives more of an impression of movement, which is desirable in most art.
Your next step is to add relatively dark shadows between the petals and correct the size of the petals if you should see some petals that look off (too big or too small).
At this point, you can start focusing on the center of the flowers. Instead of making lines, I went around the edge, halfway into the center, and the very center with circular pencil strokes. They sort of look like tight coils. These will be guidelines to shading within the center of the flower to give it some depth.
At this point, I’m switching to focus on negative space.
definitions:
positive space: the object itself (the flower)
negative space: the empty or open areas that surround the objects.
In the above picture, I am using the pencil to separate the petals.
I am focusing now on one flower to show the process of adding shade to the negative space. Right now, you can see that we’re in this middle phase where the picture and my hopes for the image aren’t matching. That is called the “ugly phase.” Many times, people reach the ugly phase and they become discouraged and give up. What they don’t realize is that the ugly phase really is temporary. It’s just a phase. We’re going to move on.
I’ve added shading to the the center of the flower.I also added some details to the flower. The shading just looks dark, but that’s not the look that I’m going for. It’s still a phase, however. Art is all about phases, just like the moon, but I like the moon in all of its phases.
I used my eraser to add some brightness to the center of the flower, to reflect light. I also kept working on the shading on the flower and around the flower. This is where I am going to leave it for now. In upcoming posts, I am going to demonstrate drawing this same flower in colored pencil, as well as in ink!
Stay tuned!!!
