Leaves, stems and flowers: tips for garden sketchers
Posted: July 10, 2019 Filed under: Uncategorized 39 CommentsI spent the afternoon sketching in my garden today. All kinds of things are blooming out there in the heat, and instead of painting a full page, I filled a spread with small sketches. Here are a few tips that might help if you are thinking of trying this:
- Remember to incorporate leaves and stems along with the flowers
- Look at the shape of each leaf, and how it comes off the stem of the plant. Every plant is different.
- Mass small flowers into one shape.
- Let some parts of the sketch escape from each frame.
- Use different size frames on the page, keeping some horizontal, some vertical and some square.
- Draw the blooms from different angles like the white daisies, below. Look at the flowers from above as well as below. Look at the unopened buds and add some of those in.
- Use complementary colours
- Vary your greens by using different blues in your foliage mixes. In the white hosta flower above, I used Cerulean Blue instead of Ultramarine or Prussian.
- Use contrast: big and small frames, big and small blooms, light and dark washes.
- Don’t treat this like a botanical study (unless of course you want to). Just have fun, keep the washes fresh and capture the essence of each flower.
Shari Blaukopf's Sketchbook 
Thanks for all the tips. Very easy to overdo flowers. I need to get outside!!!
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I’m glad it was helpful Donna! Yes, flowers can get overworked. I always have to remind myself not to overpaint them.
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Thanks for the great tips! I love my garden and I love painting the flowers as well as the veggies!
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The sketching I do includes a variety of scenes. Glad to know a garden of creativity is planted other places as WordPress
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Glad it was helpful for you. I usually paint the vegetable basket from the farmer but haven’t had a chance yet. I especially love it when the beets are in season.
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Sometimes I paint them while they are still in the garden and sometimes after I have picked them. It’s always fun.
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Great post Shari! Thank you.
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Thanks so much Barbara!
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Perfect timing! I’m about to grab my sketch stuff and head back out to the garden. Great tips. And I love the idea of little individual flower “portraits.”
Another tip: add the little shadow of the bloom on the stem (like in the daisy sketch you did). When I first noticed this and added the shadow, it really added depth to the bloom.
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I forgot that one! Will have to add it in.
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This post was a “bouquet” of helpful tips! Thank you!
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Denise, glad my bouquet was helpful!
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Thank you, very useful advice and lovely sketches.
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I’m glad to hear that David. Thanks so much for writing.
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Thank you. I was just having my morning coffee in the garden and thinking of painting some of my flowers before reading this. Great tips.
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Enjoy your painting day Bart!
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Nice Flowers, I have a beautiful Hydrangea in front of my house. It blooms for several weeks every summer. I did a watercolour painting of my Hosta’s yesterday, and used a red pencil. It was really neat how the pencil showed through the thin paint washes.
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Shawn, I also love use different coloured pencils for drawing. For plants it’s also nice to use yellow, since all the foliage has a bit of yellow in it.
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I often get overwhelmed in large gardens by all the masses of greens and even flowers. I love these tips and your montages of small “framed” floral portraits — I’m going to try these next time I’m sketching in a garden. Thank you!
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Tina, I’m glad this was helpful!
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Perfect timing as our flowers are in full bloom right now. Will definitely try the small sketches. Flowers are difficult for me.This really helps.Thanks.
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Glad you liked it Judy.
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Thank you! I struggle:)
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You’re welcome!
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What fun!
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Yes. And we may do some of this in August, if the group is interested.
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Good Evening dear friend Shari,
All your paintings and tutorials are extremely wonderful and appreciated.
I admire your open heart in teaching the art.
All the best and good luck.
Lord bless you coupled with my blessings.
Uma
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Many thanks for your kind comments Uma.
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What a great way to do a page of flower sketches! Great tips too.
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Hi Shari,
Love these, love your loose style…question: do you do the background first? Do you add to the background in the end? Does it even matter?
Thanks,
Linda
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I think that was a good question Linda. I actually did do the background first. Then the berries, then the leaves, and then the shadows on the cloth. I think it matters to me because I like to think about the process first. Glad you like them!
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Linda, when I replied to this I thought you were asking about my strawberry sketch. In these I actually paint the flowers first and then the backgrounds. In this case, it also matters because I am very careful about the shapes of the flowers so I paint them first and then match the background colour to that.
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Thanks for the clarification Shari, I thought that’s what you did and I thought it was about emphasizing the flowers. Appreciate your sharing your methods.
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Thank you for this post. It was very helpful and interesting.
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I’m glad you like it Laurie. Thanks for letting me know!
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Reblogged this on The Reluctant Poet.
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Welldone Shari! Your tips are awesome for sketching flowers. We often use more colors for shading, which is a big mistake. Can you guide me on what colors fit well in contrast?
The concept of opened and unopened buds is very interesting. Artists mostly sketch one type of flower either bloom or bud. Now I will apply all these tips in sketching my garden as well.
Hopefully, You will keep on writing more on such topics. I love to hear more from you.
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Thanks so much Patrick. You are right about the colours being very subtle for the shading on flowers.
I don’t have specific tips I can give you right now but it’s the start of gardening season so hopefully if you follow the blog you’ll see lots of stuff coming up in the next few months. I love sketching flowers and I will certainly be starting soon.
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Nice job with the sketches. going to let my friend know about this too. Jodi @ tonniesflorist.com she loves this stuff too.
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