Drawing: Palm Trees & Lilacs

Creating the drawings featured in this blog was a struggle for me. I am someone who really likes to have things done perfectly or as close to it as one can get. Drawing palm and lilac trees really tested me on that. First, I couldn't get the branches the way I wanted with the palm trees. Then, I didn't like how the flowers looked on the lilacs. There were all these little details that one shouldn't have to worry about when doodling that I worried about anyway. However, an artist never makes a mistake. Everything done to a piece of work is done the way it should be, whether the artist meant it at first or not. A drawing doesn't have to look exactly like the example. It can be unique and still look like the doodle being attempted (Umoto 3). This little bit of advice was really insightful to me. It helped me to take a step back and let myself forget about whether one stem was crooked or bent too far to the right. I was able to truly doodle, and let my pencil do the work. With that, I created two different types of trees, as previously mentioned, a palm tree and a lilac tree. First up was the palm tree. This doodle was fairly straight forward. I once again drew it layer by layer, starting with the trunk, then the stalks, then finally the leaves and coconuts, remembering to consider the direction in which the wind was blowing (Umoto 62), in order to give the tree a more life-like look. Next up, I drew a lilac tree, which is a little different. The process of getting to the end result was the same, sketching a layer at a time, as all of these doodles will be done, however the finishing touches were slightly different. For this tree, I needed to create three separate trunks, instead of one big one. Instead of branches in the top part of the tree, it was an outline of all of the leaves. The last step was adding the flowers, which was what I struggled to get right on the first go. My tendency was to draw them all over the tree, but that is not what was asked of me. "Draw groups of flowers toward the outside edge of the tree" (Umoto 38). In order to really imitate this drawing, I went against my first instinct to fill the whole thing, and abided by Sachiko Umoto's suggestion. Although I didn't necessarily like my version of the two doodles at first, I learned to let go of my expectations and accept whatever ends up on the paper, within reason.

Are you a perfectionist? Does your own criticism get in the way of something you love doing? Be honest with yourself.

Umoto, Sachiko. Illustration School: Let's Draw Plants and Small Creatures. Quarry Books, 2010.