Tag: pencil drawing

Leaves of the day: Shape charts

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After 2 weeks of daily drawings of leaves, I have made a couple of charts. There is a whole new fascinating language to learn when you are trying to describe plants, even just leaves! Try,’runcinate’, ‘lyrate’, ‘reniform’, and ‘obcordate’ just for starters. The simple shapes presented a good opportunity to add some colour as a sort of “greens” colour chart. They are mostly prepared greens, Winsor and Newton or Daler Rowney, with some beautiful Sennelier colours too. Its such good practice to make colour charts. Only through repeated use you will eventually recognise colours and be able to match colours and mix correctly. Its also very therapeutic activity… hours have drifted by today. As displacement activities go this is definitely more productive than mall wandering.
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Shape and Colour charts

Leaf of the Day: Maiden Grass

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Today’s daily drawing is the maiden grass leaf. I have been putting off drawing a long slender leaf like this as it requires a steady hand and more concentration. These spiky variegated plants liven up the borders of the apartment gardens, the mall across the road and most of the public spaces in Orlando it seems. The little lizards shoot in and out of their cover as you walk by and sometimes pose nicely for a photograph.
This will be a linear shape leaf with parallel venation.
Its one of the miscanthus family

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Maiden Grass

Leaf of the Day: Water Plantain and Carl Doddies

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A leaf from the lake at Shady Park on Morse Avenue in Winter Park. It’s not very shady.. at least the lakes aren’t. I walked there today and again there were some delightful birds. This time a little flock of very skittish white ibis. They were rushing about, up and down the banks of the lake and unlike the herons they move very quickly. A big grey heron floated backwards and forwards across the water casually avoiding an annoying yappy poodle. Charlie’s owner admitted that despite his bravado he is quite nervous of these big regal birds. I can see his point.

This rather simple leaf is not so simple to draw, with those long, simply curving lines! The vein pattern was interesting and of course, learning that it was a plantain, I could see the leaf resemblance to the common plantain which reminded me of Carl Doddies, a game we used to play when we were young.
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Water Plantain

The Big Beautiful Sun

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One week on and the big beautiful sun has replaced the big ugly freeze. We live by Lake Killarney and this morning I went out early to see what was going on. The bird community was getting on with its very busy day. Immediately by the jetty there was a little blue heron hunting in the reedy grasses, a pair of mallards hanging around the boats and a delightful fat little moorhen who pottered up and down for about an hour. The large white egret was perched on a nearby mooring post and two of the beautiful anhingas flew down from their roost to snake their way across the lake, no wonder they are called the snake bird. They swim with their bodies so low in the water that only their long flexing necks can be seen. A huge flock of cormorants settled in the centre of the lake, seagulls flew up and down and the ever present big dark vultures were slowly circling way up in brilliant blue sky. The osprey I had seen a couple of days ago carrying a fish in its talons passed by high and fast and behind me in the pines on the shore the excruciating squeaky grackles flocked, flew and regrouped before dashing off. How wonderful to have all this just off the I4 motorway!
I was looking at the reedy grass to draw. It’s a marsh grass of some sort,
Maybe Salt Marsh Grass or West Indian marsh grass, I don’t think its Sawgrass. It was full of dragon flies well damselflies to be precise. I could see 2 types at least, the blue ones and the small red ones. I was going to try to identify them but was dismayed to read that there are over 500 varieties in Florida. Red and blue will have to do for now.
It was a beautiful morning. The water was so still the reflections were perfect.
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A few pages from my 6 x 8 “sketchbook. Birds are hard to sketch, herons are easier as they move very slowly as they hunt. here is the marsh grass, the moorhen and the little blue heron.

Leaf of the Day: Umbrella Plant

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Oh the poor umbrella plant .. unhappy victim of many a dusty airless UK front room. Here in Florida it thrives and is a sturdy and happy thing. This one lives in close companionship with the little oak, again at the bottom of my steps. Its just a plain green one. The Schefflera Arboricola. Its not so easy to draw. It is my first compound leaf, which really means I have had to draw 10 leaves, not just one. .
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The Umbrella Plant


the drawing can be bought for $40 plus postage

Leaf of the Day: Moneywort or Dollarweed

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What a delightful little weed this is. It has insinuated itself into the plant borders and grassy bits of wasteland here with some success. You can’t help but appreciate its fragile qualities which are undoubtedly offset by its invasive and tenacious roots and its clever way of creeping along.. some roots and stems spring from the same point, then it must shoot out a runner and repeat itself and on and on.. It would be very interesting to see its progress in a time-laspse film
It is tiny.. the biggest leaves are about 1″ in diameter. The biggest leaf here is only 3/4 of an inch. The shape is peltate. I am going to draw a chart of the different shapes very soon.
I have a fondness for some weeds and this is one of them.
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Moneywort or Dollarweed

Leaf of the Day: Yet another Oak..the Scarlet Oak

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On an early morning mercy-dash to the chemists in the “mawl” across the road to get dental repair stuff I found this pretty leaf. Its tree is decidedly deciduous and has shed quite a few more leaves after the freeze. There are several of these dainty trees decorating the car park of the store and I would imagine they are ornamental oaks, not growing too big to uproot either the carpark, or the store. The leaf shape, without the indents, would be much rounder than my other oaks. Its a beautiful colour as it has its autumn tints still.. red gold green and yellow.. (colour will follow, its a promise)
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Scarlet Oak










image size 6 x 7″

Leaf of the Day: Croton

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Hmmm the croton! I have yet to fall in love with these. I found this lying on the path outside the apartment. The Big Ugly Freeze has done some damage and quite a few plants are looking sad. I am not sure if this just fell off or blew off as we have also had some Big Ugly Winds too, but no plant vandalism was involved in its aquisition. Its main attraction of the croton I think is the colour which of course you cannot see here.. (later will come colour) but this will give you an idea. Daves Garden crotons are splendid in colour and variety.

It poses an interesting problem for b/w drawing because the tonal values of the red and green parts are very similar in tone so making to difficult to render. I didnt do much as you can see .. these are big leaves and on Saturdays I have other things to do but it was interesting to see the markings and actually look at them properly. The patterns throw up endless possibilites for designers.
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The Croton

Leaf of the Day: Another oak.. but which ?

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This is from a little treelet that is growing hidden behind the aircon outlet just by the steps which I fell down at New Year. It’s small, only maybe 4ft high so I am not sure if its leaves are really representative of the full grown tree. They are a very rich green and leathery with very sharp points. I am sure it is an oak. I have tried to identify it but it could be one of many. I am thinking it might be a White Oak. Any help gratefully received.
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The White Oak

Leaf of the Day : Euonymous

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Due to the continuing Big Ugly Freeze I have not ventured far and the little communal garden outside has plenty of plants. The very first one I come to is the ubiquitous euonymous. This is the yellow and green variety and it needed a tonal drawing to show off its patterns. I am only using a sketch book with normal cartridge paper at the moment. I will need to get onto a finer surface for better work with less of the grain of the paper to deal with.
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Euonymous