RBGE Botanical Illustration Certificate: Unit 3 Reflection
Unit three was all about tertiary colours!
I was overjoyed to be painting again that this unit felt like a breeze. My main takeaway was experimenting!! This unit began with exercises depicting shapes and 3D forms in watercolour. I felt myself returning to the best bit of botanical painting that ‘flow state’, especially now since I’ve had more practice with wet-on-wet techniques. This unique let me experiment with different textures and objects to create brush strokes I’d not tried before. I used tissue and dry brush techniques to practice layer texture onto my pear. I enjoyed this controlled chaos on my pear and felt it turned out rather nice! I wouldn’t have thought to ever grab anything like that to create texture, I think next time I need to try with a sponge! I had a play around with composition as well, placing both pear depictions opposite to each other and I think it gives an interesting overall picture. It's more interesting than just side by side, although I do notice the light seems a bit off since they’re opposite each other.
There were two different areas I found difficult this time around. The first was keeping my washes smooth on the initial pear and I am actually glad I did one with shadows to practice before the main pear. It helped to steady my hands as I was too hasty and even went outside of the lines which caused uneven and messy edges. Washes over large areas I always find tough. I either make the paper not wet enough and try to fix this by going back into the layers to add more water before letting them dry. I need to be patient! This always causes calliflowers and just a mess, so I was happy to have practiced before the ‘real one’ stole the show with the addition of those dry brush marks!
Another area I found difficult was the third activity painting the leaf. I found my depth of shadows lacking and I got a bit lost again on the leaf back. I need to keep working on my leaf shadows. I found my measured drawings easier this time around. It's getting simpler to draw the initial drawings. However, the shadows I feel lack a bit of depth. I think this is really evident in the back of the Strawberry leaf depiction. I'll work on this and add more paint next time to increase depth. I decided on a different leaf this time (Wild Strawberry) and it was much easier to notice the shadows and draw the leaf. I am glad I switched plants and was able to see more prominent veins in comparison to the rhododendron leaves. I look forward to progressing and painting with colour in the next unit!
