Contour Drawing–or, ‘My Lines, My Lines!”

Tags

botanical drawings, Canson XL Mix Media paper, chipmunk, general's graphite sketch pencils, Kathleen A. Renninger, Pages from a Nature-Lover's Diary

The Story Behind the Sketch:I recently had my kitty out in the yard on the leash, when I spotted a rather interesting-looking weed growing by the shed. What had caught my eye was  the way the leaves came off the stem, in a sort of spiraling form. Luckily, I’d grabbed my sketchbook before going out. While my furry companion  lounged in a patch of catnip nearby, I tried to capture the essence of this engaging weed.

The Technical Stuff:

Paper: Canson XL Mix-Media tablet.  Sketching materials: General’s 3B graphite sketch pencil. (This paper works fine for pencil sketching too. It does seem to be a good all-around multi-media paper.)

My Experience in Doing this Sketch: 

Depending on kitty’s whims , my time was likely to be pretty limited, so I attempted to do only a contour drawing of the weed–in other words,  one in which only lines  are used to define the shapes, rather than areas of tone.  It wasn’t as simple as it seemed  to capture the unusual shape of the base of the  leaves, but it was absorbing and enjoyable, and created a pretty good record of the plant itself, which I later looked-up. I believe it’s  a type of Sow Thistle, Sonchus Oleraceus.

 

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Today’s Excerpt from ‘Pages from a Nature-Lover’s Diary”:

Chipmunk Stuffing leaves into Cheek Pouches

 

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NOTE: 

All images and text in this post are Copyright K. A. Renninger 2014. I am more than happy to have you share them through your own blog, and hope you will do so—but you must give me credit. Anyone who uses them to make money will be prosecuted.