Tag: pencil drawing

Leaf of the Day: Ramie, Wrapping for Mummies and much more.

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I have great admiration for habitual plein air painters. There are so many problems that arise when you are drawing or painting away from the house. Just getting your kit sorted for one, and every painter needs a slightly different set of essentials depending on how and what they want to paint. Then there is the weather, getting to your chosen spot, finding a comfortable place to sit/stand and, here in Florida of course, every tiny biting thing that can attack you will, with relish etc etc etc.
Today I almost got the kit right, but as it was my plan was to make tonal sketches of the gazebo at different times of the day, I needed the sun.. it was cloudy.. off and on..and windy ( blowy paper, hard cycling). But I did get a couple of sketches done and the gardens were tranquil today.

In the cloudy times I wandered around and found this beautifully shaped leaf from a shrubby low lying plant. The label says Boemeria Nivea Ramie. I am sure that is what it is but I cannot find a reference to one with these deeply divided leaves. However it is definitely of the species which are from the nettle family. Like nettles these are hairy, but not stinging.
This pretty plant turns out to be a very important and ancient source of natural fibres,which are called “bast”. Other bast producing plants are jute, hemp, and flax and the fibres are used for innumerable different products from fabrics and car body parts to backing for fire hoses.
Rami was known for its fibres in China for many centuries and they have been found in outer shrouds of Egyptian Mummy cloths from around 5000-3300 BC. During the complicated wrapping process “spells” were recited which were formulas which the deceased should have learnt by heart during his life. The formulas were for the re-animating the body once the passage to the other world was completed and for warding off evil. I read that the fibres seem to contain an anti bacterial element which made it ideal for the process of mummification.. amazing!
It does have medicinal properties, as I am finding do most plants, many seeming to fall into the category of “purgative” but little rami seems to be able to help with many maladies including, the ominously unspecified “women’s complaints”. Maybe a little judicious application of tincture of Ramie might just help the forlorn 34 A cup into a happy and fulfilled 38 DD, as I also note it is excellent for fattening pigs. (This is a joke, please do not try this at home.. but if you do have fun)

The vein structure of this leaf is wonderful, I haven’t time or energy to make a full study but this just records the parts that interested me.
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Ramie

Leaf of the Day: Plains Tickseed

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This is my third attempt to get this little flower back to the house unwilted. This one is on its last legs and, as I am drawing it at 8.00pm, I know how it feels, but it deserves to immortalised. I had sketched it down at the gardens today in situ. It’s so pretty and delicate with lovely yellows and russet browns and this is another one I will have to pay more attention to when I get round to colour studies more seriously. The Plains tickseed, coreopsis tinctoria — so called because the seeds look like bugs.(the translation from the Greek koris specifies bed bugs in fact), tintoria because this little plant was a well known source of a bright yellow dye. Below are the on-site colour sketch and a quick pencil study.

My second trip to Leu Gardens was not very productive in terms of drawings. I am not an habitual plein air artist and am easily distracted by what is going on around me, squirrels, woodpeckers, lizards etc, also this seems to be the time of the school outing, so I spent more time trying to find a quiet spot than actually doing anything.

It is sometimes very hard to decide what to paint given a free hand and so many possibilities, but time and time again I am drawn to the trees so I returned to gazebo view which I found on Monday and have decided to try to concentrate my efforts here. The gazebo is quite a plain little white pavilion but I like the aspect and the huge surrounding trees, so have I will make a few studies and see what I can do, without resorting to any photographs at all. So far, since starting the blog, I have managed to resist. I have nothing against using photographs as an aid, and as an illustrator it was absolutely necessary (a quick trip from the UKto India to sketch a Baobab for a 3 day deadline is a bit impractical). But working without them means that you get a different result and you have to look much harder which is partly the reason for doing the course, to return to more careful observation and just draw without even thinking of finished work. That can come later.
So I intend to take a step by step approach from pencil sketch to tonal sketch and colour note drawings, see how they turn out and (maybe) post the results. However today I spent a bit more time just looking at the greens and watching the light change on the trees..and the squirrels gamboling and the woodpeckers pecking ..I hope tomorrow I will find them less charming (in the literal sense of the word) and be able to concentrate better..
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Plains Tickseed

Leaf of the Day: Yaupon Holly, and a liquor that sorts the men from the boys

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Today I have started a week of sketching at Leu Gardens. I spent quite a long time just looking at the colours and mixing up appropriate greens and I did manage a couple of sketches which I will post later this week. Last week I was looking for Yaupon Holly in the garden, which I assumed was going to be something like an English Holly. It is, in fact nothing like an English Holly. It has tiny pretty leaves and they are not prickly! With directions from Tony and Cecil I found two trees. One a pretty weeping variety, which was covered with pretty orangy red berries and the other one, the native yaupon tree.
I have been curious to see this tree after reading about the Black drink in the book I have borrowed from the library about Jacques Le Moyne the 16th century artist and adventurer who I mentioned in an earlier post here .
Le Moyne arrived in Florida in 1562 with a French expedition and started recording the lives of the Native Americans. Things didn’t go too well for these early settlers who were ousted by the Spanish after 2 years and Le Moyne had to flee for his life after most of his companions were killed by Spanish forces. His original drawings were lost in a fire but when he arrived in England he was commissioned by Walter Raleigh and collaborated with an engraver Theodore de Bray to produce a series of extraordinary illustrations recording the lives of the Timucua tribe of Indians in northeast Florida. The legitimacy of Le Moyne’s hand in the works is now questioned but they remain some of the very first images of the New World and its people to be circulated in Europe.

The particular reason for his mention in this post is that in one engraving “An Indian Chief in Council”, a circle of men are gathered round and being handed a liquid to drink from shells . The drink is the “Black Drink”, made from the Yaupon Holly..the Latin name is Ilex Vomitoria which should alert you to some of its properties!
The Timucua people had a ceremony in which, to prepare for hunting trips and other important tribal matters, the highly caffeinated cassina tea, brewed from the leaves of the Yaupon Holly was served. The caffeine content was so high that it induced vomiting in many and it was thought that the ability to hold your drink, and your stomach, showed you were fit and able to withstand the rigors of hunt or battle. In lesser quantity, and strength cassina was served as a drink of friendship and alliance..allegedly. Caffeine was a prized commodity and yaupon holly was traded as was tobacco… I wonder if Good Queen Bess ever sipped a afternoon cuppa of Ilex Vomitoria?.. if so I bet she held up well.

Vomiting top right and top left!


This image is from the University of South Florida’s excellent website “Exploring Florida” here. It shows all the engravings and beautiful details too.

The figures in this slice of Indian life looks quite odd to us now but De Bray, not having seen the Timucua people himself, was basing his idea of the human form on contemporary 16th century European painting and, of course, the fashionable body shape of the day, so all are well muscled-up, the girls draped languidly around their boiling cauldrons while the chaps are assuming artistic and classical stances even when being sick. I think the reality was somewhat different.

The whole set of engravings are completely fascinating and sometimes rather greusome..but well worth a look.
This, then, is the innocent looking little Yaupon Holly. Should I feel myself flagging tomorrow I might consider chewing on a leaf or two…it might well improve the drawing.

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Yaupon Holly

Leaf of the Day: The Rock Strangling Fig

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Today I have returned to sorting out the paints and looking at pigments, so every possible surface is covered with paint in tubes, and paint in pans and little square painted samples of all of them, with notes on transparency, staining, granulation etc. It’s a long and absorbing job and shows how completely misleading the names of paints can be as regards their pigments. Pigments are a fascinating subject in themselves and I have spent hours reading and looking and trying to commit some of the unpronounceable chemical names to memory. My charts have sub charts and all my notes have foot notes.

However I had to draw this nice leaf today before it shrivelled up. So here are a couple of quick studies of a Rock Fig leaf, ficus palmeri. The rock fig is one of the Strangler Figs and this leaf has a beautiful vein structure, with thick red raised veins in the centre turning to cream towards the edges, set against the dark green of the leaf blade.

Strangler figs, as their name implies, can be less than kind to their hosts. They start life as epiphytes high up on the branches of host trees from where they send out roots which encircle the host’s trunk and eventually reach the ground. These roots then enlarge and squeeze the host tree’s trunk while the upper branches overshadow it and take all its light. The host may eventually host die and rot, leaving a hollow giant fig tree. Where no trees are available they will still feel an imperative to strangle something, so in a desert situation they are reduced to the slightly less productive occupation of strangling rocks… hence the Rock Fig.
In desert areas of California the roots of the Rock Fig unite to coat the vertical rock faces and are described as resembling strange wooden lava flows or tumbling like pale frozen waterfalls over the cliffs. These particular leaves are beautiful but the roots of the strangler figs are by far their most interesting feature. Next week I hope to spend 5 days week drawing outside at the Gardens and will have chance for some great strangler root studies.

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Rock Fig

Leaf of the Day: “Ferns in Space” The Resurrection Fern

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These three little fern fronds are from the Resurrection Fern, pleopeltis polypodioides..two words I intend to use constantly at the next Winter Park cocktail party. These pretty little ferns can be seen dancing along the lower limbs of the great oaks and making lacy collars round the bases of the palms. They are as synonymous with visions of the ‘old south’ as Spanish moss and Vivien Lee.
Their name comes from their amazing ability to go without water, it has been calculated they could survive for as much as 100 years, during which time they will curl up tightly and appear to be dead. Then, come that longed for shower, they burst into life again, the fronds reabsorb water, slowly regain their bright green colour, and uncurl, unrolling each leaflet to return to their original shape. This near perfect adaptation enables them to survive the hottest of Florida summers.
They are small, only up to 6 inches in height and grow from a central creeping root which threads itself along the tree bark. On old trees they form dense mats and you would think the branches would collapse under the weight but these little ferns are a light as a feather.

These particular ferns belong to the air plant family, strange and fascinating plants which, (when not glued onto horrible bits of resin “sculpture” in the UK and condemned to dust) attach themselves to to other plants, taking their nutrients from the air and from water that collects on the outer surface of bark.
In 1997 this little fern became the first “fern in space” aboard the shuttle, as part of an experiment to see if it would resurrect in space..today I hear they can grow marigolds in moon dust.

These are, as you can see, in their un-resurrected state but the one on the left is beginning to uncurl and its lower leaves are beginning to straighten out. They are from the little cycad I had drawn before here in my post “Dinosaur Food” but I do have my own small piece of resurrection fern which Pedro gave me.
Following his strict instructions I have tied it to a rock with raffia and the rock sits in a dish of water so it is watered by osmosis. I have to stop myself wanting to spray it constantly, as to see the fronds curled up is not what a caring gardener feels a plant should look like. Happily it is rewarding my restraint with some tiny new curly fronds. It’s a little darling.

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Resurrection Fern

Leaf of the Day: The Curious Ear Tree Pod

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The magnificent Guanacaste tree is the symbol of Costa Rica where spent I two extremely wet but interesting months a couple of years ago. They are huge stately trees which grow in the province of Guanacaste where they cast wide and welcome shade for the cattle in the rich pasture lands which border the Pacific coast. The botanic name is enterolobium cyclocarpum and the name Guanacaste is from a Spanish translation of a local Indian word “cauhnacaztli” meaning “place of the ear tree”.

Guanacaste Tree and Seeds

The pods, as you can see, are beautifully curled like ears and when dry, rattle nicely with the dry seeds inside. They are tough and dark brown and the seeds are very hard, like little stones. I can’t imagine how they ever manage to germinate. I would have thought a steam roller would be necessary to crack the outer casing. There seems to be some idea that the natural browsers of these pods have died out.
The 3 local trees are quite small and the seeds I have are smaller and not so pretty as the big Guanacaste seeds above, that are used for jewellery in Central and South America. Waynes Word site on all things botanical had an excellent page on botanical jewellery here

My drawing today is just a pencil study and some sketches of the ear pod. (The line under the pod is the top of my sketchbook..I balance small things there while I am drawing them as I did the tea seed pod)

As a postscript, I am sure the flags will be at half mast today at the Magic Kingdom here, marking the death of Ollie Johnston, last of the Nine Old Men from the heyday of Disney animation. He worked as an animation director on those beautiful early films (Bambi, Fantasia, Pinocchio and Snow White) where the animation is superb, and the mixture of supreme drawing skills and sensitive characterisation brought us endearing and wholly believable speaking animals. According to the obituaries one of Ollie Johnston’ s key contributions was his skill in transferring the warmth and subtleties of human emotion to the characters.
Disney artists’ drawings are always wonderful, here is a lovely sheet of concept drawings for one of the hares in Bambi. They are such good examples of observation and the understanding of form and how the simplest change of a line can effect the expression on a face, human or animal. I will be returning to these inspirational artists soon.

This and much more from the website, Animation Archive here

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Ear Tree Pod

Leaf of the Day: Lipstick Tree Pod and Fake Blood

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For over a week now these strange pods with their soft prickles have been sitting quietly on the kitchen unit like little stranded sea creatures. Pedro had shown me this tree some time ago, and breaking open a pod, had asked me to crush the seeds between my fingers. The little dull red seeds exploded with a shocking red colouring, like a dense cadmium red, quite beautiful and almost bloody. It didn’t surprise me to discover that the Aztecs used the juice of the lipstick pod seeds to turn their ritual chocolate drinks blood red.

So this is the open pod of the bixa orellana, the Lipstick tree. Other names are annatto or achiote. I had heard of the food colouring annatto, it is used in Latin American cooking, but had no idea that it came in this exotic packaging.
However this gorgeous red colouring is used widely for, as of course it’s name implies, cosmetics, textiles, food and as a wonderful traditional hair dye by the Tsáchila people of Ecuador.


photo Patricio Realpe from Wiki here

“Achiotl” was made into an ink used for 16th century Mexican manuscript painting and Mayan scriptures, and, when the Aztecs were not using real blood, it served as a symbolic substitute for their rituals, no doubt to the great relief of the odd virgin or two.

Here is some grisly blood letting for Tezcatlipoca, the Jaguar god, who looks unlikely to be fooled by mere annatto juice. and a beautiful Mayan Manuscript from the Bridgeman Library here

Here in USA, the rubbery bland stuff they call Cheddar cheese is, unsuccessfully, helped along with annatto to try to make it look appetising but it is also the colouring for traditional English Red Leicester cheese.
Here at the home of Sparkenhoe Cheese in Leicestershire UK they are adding the annatto with, to my personal taste, a more appetising result.

Before embarking on the drawing I made a few sketches of the pods. At the moment the tree only has old pods so I am looking forward to the flowers and new bright red pods. I may even make some of my own hand pressed annatto ink to use in recording some of my experiences here, which, to date I am glad to say, have been slightly less alarming than those of the previous visitors from Spain.
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Lipstick Tree Pod

Leaf Of the Day: Coral Honeysuckle.. first contact.

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I made my weekly visit to Leu Gardens today as a treat before starting on a final piece for the coloured pencil unit of the course.
The gardens change every week with new things coming into bloom or leaf, it’s a lovely time to be there. One really delightful discovery was the Chinese Perfume Bush which is a nondescript looking shrub but the perfume of its tiny little white flowers is exquisite.

I have been undecided about which plant to draw for this second assignment, and in the end it comes down to something that will hopefully stay alive for more than a day. I also wanted to do something local to Florida. Pansies might have been easier but what is the point of being here and not engaging with the locals, so I collected this piece of Coral Honeysuckle on the way home. It grows all over a neighbouring fence and so if parts of it die I can go and get some more. I think it grows in the UK as well but is rather cold sensitive ..here it is rampant. I have to say I am not very fond of it but closer study may reveal some hidden beauty. It just lacks the delicacy of the native UK honeysuckles and this one has no scent and the colour is garish.

Anyway today I did a quick “get to know it” sketch and am starting to draw it out. I have given myself all day tomorrow to complete it, so I hope I can keep it alive overnight. ( I have put it in the fridge). If I can get the main drawing done and one leaf and one flower in colour then, if I have to bring on substitutes later, I will at least have a guide to the colours.
There is still one other problem in that I have to hang it from my magnifying stand, as it grows trailing down a chain link fence so the stem has to be a the top. I have put a little piece of wet oasis on the cut end which I spray from time to time ..so I hope that will do the trick.. photographs beckon…

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Coral Honeysuckle Sketch

Leaf of the Day: Dinosaur Food, Visualising Pre History (& some old tricks with perfume)

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Cycads
Here, as promised from my previous post Cycad Seeds, is just a little information about these amazing, ancient, Permian era plants that are little changed in 250 million years. Standing amongst the huge primeval creatures on a steamy, close day in Leu Gardens, and understanding some of their history, you could be forgiven for mistaking the air’s damp humidity for the the hot breath of a passing Brontosaurus. They are a glimpse into a strange and wonderful past time.

Quiet, stately plants with leaves shooting straight up from the ground or from long thick trunks, the Cycads are gymnosperms and include zamiaceae, encephalartos, and macrozamia. Some are like palms, some more like ferns and some more shrubby. One I saw at Marie Selby Gardens has long fierce thorns and has the enviable name of encephalartos horridus. These below are the cycus revolta, the confusingly named Sago Palm as it is not a palm but it does produce a type of sago.
photo Dave’s Garden again

A native cycad to Florida is the coontie, Zamia pumila. “Coontie” is a Seminole word which approximates to ‘flour root’ and the Seminole people used it despite its poisonous properties.as a very important food source. The stems and roots had to be pounded to a pulp and washed to remove the poisons and then the paste was dried and used as a flour for baking bread. It was known as Florida “Arrow Root” and there was a sizeable industry in Florida producing the starch until about 1925, but overproduction decimated the local plants as is often the case.
I do wonder how, and at what cost people discovered methods of getting rid of the poisonous parts of plants, or that it would be worth the obvious risk in the end. Captain Cook’s pigs, on his Australian expedition, fell foul of the poison and died. His crew only suffered a ‘hearty fit of vomiting and purging’.

Trading Sex for Pollen
Cycads have a novel way of reproducing themselves which may account for their longevity. I am not going to plumb the murky depths of plant sex to any great degree but this is very interesting
Cycads producemale and female cones on different plants. The male cone produces a scent which attracts thrips, little insects, who enter the gaps in the cone and, in doing so, cover themselves in the pollen they have been seeking. The cone then heats up which changes the attractive scent into something that the thrips don’t like at all.. they flee.. only to find that a nearby female cone is producing the weaker scent they like .. Same scent …different strength. Off they go carrying their precious load of fertilizing pollen with them.
Two scientists Irene Terry and husband Robert Roemer have been studying this behavior at the University of Utah.

“They [cycads] are trading food for sex. Pollen is the only thing these thrips eat, so they totally rely on the plants. And the thrips are the only animals that pollinate the plants.”
“These cycads heat up, and associated with that heating is a huge increase in volatile fragrances emitted by the cone” Terry says. “It takes your breath away. It’s a harsh, overwhelming odor like nothing you ever smelled before”
“Think of a guy with too much after shave” Roemer says.

Apparently this is called push-pull pollination.. a nice conversation stopper for that tedious dinner party, especially if you happen to be sitting next to an overscented lothario whose “volatile fragrance” is clashing with your prawn cocktail.

Painting Prehistory

No article about art and prehistory would be complete without mentioning the great and influential painter /illustrator/sculptor Charles R Knight. In the 1890’s and early 19oo’s he brought the prehistoric world to life for us through his careful and meticulously researched paintings.
His love of nature and quest for accuracy took him at the age of 19 to the American Museum of Natural History in New York .

“Visiting the museum on an almost daily basis, he spent hours in the taxidermy department, studying the carcasses of many creatures, familiarizing himself with their musculature and skeletal structure“

He became well known and worked extensively with the leading paleontologists of the day to produce models and paintings showing what the world must have looked like in those extraordinary times.
The Florida link is also here :
“He frequently visited friends and patrons in Palm Beach, Florida. They were delighted to entertain the renowned artist, and Knight used the Floridian foliage, particularly the palm trees, in his large prehistoric paintings. “
(spot the cycads in the painting above)
Here is the lovely tribute site to Knight maintained by his daughter with acknowledgements to his influence on film makers and other artists.. Willis O’Brien, animator of the classic and tragic King Kong and Ray Harryhausen’s epic monsters owed him much.
DO go and have a look at the wonderful work at Charles Knight Gallery.
Like Normal Rockwell you could say he was a commercial artist but don’t they just brighten your day?

Dino Bugs

Synchronicity is still in the air (blame Jung) as yesterday I heard about the new Xray technique (over a hundred years after Knight) that Paul Tafforeau in France has been using to reveal insects from within ancient pieces of opaque rock. The images are quite magical. Not only does this reveal their presence and detail but the information obtained from the rotating scan can then be used to create an exquisite 3D specimen. DO go and watch the short video from the BBC site here Secret Dino Bugs Revealed .
How very excited Knight would surely have been if he could have seen this.

My drawing today is a sketch of the small Cycad about 4ft ( now I know what it is! ) which grows just across the car park at the apartment. I can see it from the top of our steps. On the north side of the trunk a little colony of Resurrection Fern is growing.. and that’s another curious plant for another post.
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Killarney Bay Cycad

Leaf of the Day: Woman’s Tongue

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I found this pod a couple of weeks ago on the seafront in Sarasota. I just could not identify it, however after my visit to the library I have found out that it is the pod of the one of the albizia trees, albizia lebbeck. The delicate pods are about 6 to 8 inches long, flattened and papery and they rattle. I am sure I don’t need to explain the origin of the name to you, do I!
There are many other albizias some with longer curling pods which is why I had difficulty finding this one in the guide book. It is, apparently, a very naughty and invasive tree ( category one!) here in Florida, wantonly seeding everywhere and its lovely pods even described as “trashy”by one commentator. The flowers are pretty, very fragrant pompom affairs, all in all a very girly plant, chatty, decorative and just a tiny bit louche!..
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Woman’s Tongue