Drawing Nature

     After successfully drawing the basic shapes, I have decided to push myself further and draw some plants. Drawing flowers and trees are actually one of my favorite things to do.

     The first thing I made was a lily. When i was making these drawings, I thought I was done with the basic shapes. But I was wrong. Part of drawing the lily was to make a foreshortened circle. Then, Mark Kistler introduced a new technique: tapering. Tapering is narrowing your object to make it look like that part of the object looks like it is further away. "Tapering is another one of those very important ideas that you will start to notice everywhere now that you are aware of it" (Kistler 124). Using this new technique, I completed the lily (or lilies), and i think they turned out pretty good.

     The next object i drew was a tree. Using the tapering technique, I drew the trunk and roots. It took me so long to get this right in my mind because I am very self-conscious about the way my drawings look. Then as it came to the leaves, I used a special way to draw them (Kistler taught me this technique). You draw a circle, then draw little arches along the edge of the circle all the way around, and then lightly sketch some curly "Q's" inside the circle. Kistler says that having an odd amount of objects together, is a lot more visually appealing than an even amount (Kistler 166). Add some shading and wood grain texture and you got a nice looking tree.

     How do you think these drawings turned out? Could I have added more shading to the lilies, or made the tree slightly bigger?

Kistler, Mark. You Can Draw in 30 Days: the Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less. Da Capo Lifelong, a Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2011.