RBGE Botanical Illustration Certificate: Unit 7 Reflection

Unit 7 was my formal introduction to compositional development, before this I’d never learned about compositional balance or layout before.

I enjoyed learning about the Golden Ratio, triangle, circle and other layouts from other artworks and noticed how we can use other artworks for inspiration. I struggled with time management and decision fatigue. I definitely over thought my own layout and spent too much time troubleshooting that I ran out of time to finish my transfer to watercolour paper before submission.

I got as far as tracing the transfer, stretched my watercolour paper and pencil lined the back of the transfer. I was so close! I am actually glad for this because after submission, I went back to redraw (of course) some of the elements (bud and seedhead) for a more polished look.

In this unit, my time was eaten by layout decisions. I kept moving elements around, drawing them, deciding on a different position, erasing and then redrawing them all again. I even used some of my previous measured drawings to help the process go by faster. I felt redrawing everything from the start would be a drag. In total, I restarted three times before landing on my final composition. It's harder than it seems! I now have more respect for art and how many decisions go into a beautiful design.