Botanical Illustration II

I promised I would keep you posted on my progress in my introductory Botanical Illustration class.  During the second class, we tinted the drawing we made during the first class using colored pencils.  One of my fellow students decided not to color her original drawing, explaining that she didn't think the color would enhance the drawing much.  I was inclined to think the same way, but decided to color my drawing anyway (1) to explore the coloring process and (2) because my drawing wasn't a "masterpiece" anyway; so what if I screwed it up?  I'm neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the result (above).  Kali said that the coloring was pretty subtle, but the colored pencil "leads" were hard - I really had to push to get the color to show.

After we colored our previous week's drawing, we explored drawing on paper tinted with watercolors.  We moistened watercolor paper, dabbed on some color, and encouraged the paint to run and bleed.  The instructor ironed our paper to dry it, then told us to select a spot on which to draw another leaf.  The result appears above.  I'm still not comfortable with the stippling technique; I'm going to have to work on it to achieve the results I'd like.

Tonight: scratchboard.  Stay tuned.