{"id":15523,"date":"2025-05-18T12:40:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T12:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.toadhollowstudio.com\/wp_blog\/?p=15523"},"modified":"2025-05-18T16:35:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T16:35:45","slug":"lilac-leaves-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toadhollowstudio.com\/wp_blog\/2025\/05\/lilac-leaves-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lilac Leaves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I begin, I would like to address two items: blog maintenance and a personal note.<\/p>\n

The images have stopped appearing in the blog sent to my mailbox, and I assume they are not appearing in your version either. I\u2019m trying to find out why. I\u2019ve toggled off an application option, which I suspect is causing the problem. If the images are back, yippee, I\u2019m a genius! I\u2019m not so bright if they are still missing from this post. If so, please be assured that I\u2019ll continue to work on correcting the problem. Thanks for understanding.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry this blog post took longer than usual to create. I had a crisis of spirit and downloaded a copyright-free photo to draw instead of using one of my own. That turned into a disaster. I could not conjure up the energy to work on it. I kept trying to, day after day, week after week, but I just couldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lilac<\/a>I felt miserable until I received an inspiring email from Warren Woodzell (a gifted artist). Thank you once again, Warren. Your kind words about my artwork and tutorials reminded me of why I love to draw and what I love to draw. I set aside the low-energy drawing and chose to draw some lilac leaves from my photos instead. My energy returned immediately, and I felt happy again!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though I\u2019ve been creating art for many years, it remains a mystery to me in many ways. After taking this detour, though, I know how to stay on track: always follow the energy.<\/p>\n

As usual, I\u2019m drawing this on Arches hotpress watercolor paper with Mars Lumograph pencils. The Arches paper is smooth enough for fine detail yet textured enough to hold deep blacks, and the graphite in the Mars Lumograph pencils is always smooth and without hard bits, and the grades are true.<\/p>\n

\"Line<\/a>Those who know me know I trace the initial line drawing without guilt. However, the veins on the leaves are essential in this piece, but some were too delicate to trace, so I\u2019m drawing them by eye. \u201cToo delicate to trace\u201d means I couldn\u2019t draw around the veins with enough finesse to make them look natural. If I could have, I would have. It would have saved me tons of time.<\/p>\n

The small buds and stem at the center of the leaves serve as the focal point of the drawing. They are slightly out of focus, so I captured all the details I could in the line drawing. With a bit of imagination, there is enough detail to draw them in focus.<\/p>\n

I may have drawn too much detail in this line drawing. I had so much energy from switching to my own photo that I might have overdone it. If so, that will mean some erasing, slowing down the process.<\/p>\n

\"Lilac<\/a>Beginning a new drawing is always exciting and a little scary. It\u2019s crucial to draw the initial values accurately because drawing is a balancing act. Values are relative; altering one is likely to affect them all, as each value informs you about the adjacent ones. That thought can easily freeze you in your tracks if you think about it too much.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I added value to the stems and buds of the lilac and the surrounding leaves first. This means I\u2019m beginning the drawing at the center of attention instead of sneaking up on it. It also means I\u2019m working in an off-center part of the drawing instead of dividing it into quarters, which will be unusual to scan in steps but manageable. The details of the buds are so tiny that they are challenging to draw. I want to give credit where credit is due; my electric eraser, with its small pointed nib, has saved the day more than once while drawing these details.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My hatching strokes are short, parallel, and overlap a bit. I can vary the hatch’s value with the pencil’s pressure. After a bit of practice, creating a smooth, one-value hatch is possible.<\/p>\n

The leaves are beautiful as they arc through space and catch the light. Each is unique and has many subtle details that I must focus on to ensure I accurately model the value changes. The veins are so thin that I have to draw them slightly larger than they are. I believe that will look fine since the veins are quite prominent in the photo.<\/p>\n

The leaf on the bottom right of this cluster gave me all sorts of trouble. I just couldn\u2019t get the value pattern right. It was a complicated pattern, but I\u2019ve drawn more complex patterns without so much trouble. I even tried wearing a non-patterned shirt so that the reflection on the iPad screen, where I had the reference photo, would be less busy and distracting. Nothing helped until I made the veins a little thinner. After that, the values came together. The veins seem to have a \u2018magic\u2019 width. If they are too large, they are distracting; if they are too thin, they disappear.<\/p>\n

\"Lilac<\/a>I\u2019m using my book light to see the dark background details in this photo reference. My overhead light washes them out because I have the photo on my iPad, and the clip-on book light allows me to turn off the overhead light. Additionally, the drawing has many subtle values, so I\u2019m using a value scale to see them accurately. The value scale saves me a lot of rework and frustration.<\/p>\n

I used my value scale to draw a leaf with a dark background. I compared the value scale to the leaf repeatedly, and it matched, but the leaf I\u2019d drawn looked too dark to my eye until I added the dark background. Suddenly, the leaf appeared to have the correct value! The dark background worked its magic, making the value just right. You might wonder why I don\u2019t add the background first; perhaps I should. However, in small, tight areas like the one I was working in, I prefer to add a dark background last to avoid smudging the dark graphite onto the lighter areas.<\/p>\n

Backgrounds often offer considerable flexibility. You can be somewhat relaxed with the details as long as the values remain correct. When creating a highly detailed piece, this approach allows you to take a breather and reduces the time spent on the drawing process.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lilac<\/a>Now I\u2019m in the weeds. Well, not really, but close. I\u2019m sketching all the limbs and twigs behind the leaves in the left-hand corner. This isn\u2019t enjoyable. It\u2019s meticulous and frustrating. The only saving grace of this area is that I can edit it as I wish, and no one will notice if a few twigs are out of place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that I have started using my value scale, I\u2019m very critical of my values and feel that my whole drawing is off by a few steps. I keep reminding myself that all is well and that it still looks okay, but I find myself struggling between instinctively drawing the leaves and using a tool that accurately pinpoints the values for me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve revisited the smaller border leaves on the left-hand side. I had drawn them too lightly, and they were competing for attention with the main leaves in the center of the composition. Darkening them slightly allows the central leaves to stand out more. I started drawing these leaves just as I began using the value scale and didn\u2019t want to admit I\u2019d missed their values. Hoping the leaves would work as they were, I kept on drawing. That was wishful thinking!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I finished the small limbs and a bit of chain link fence in the upper left-hand corner, and I\u2019m glad to be done with it! It\u2019s not perfect, but it\u2019s close enough to fool the eye, and that\u2019s good enough for this part of the drawing. It was tedious work because some of the twigs were barely there, so I had to handle them gently.<\/p>\n

I finished this section by adding a few leaves and a little more background at the center top of the drawing. So far, I like how this drawing looks and hope I continue to feel that way about it. Although the extremely dark bottom right-hand corner has the potential to ruin my happy mood, I\u2019ll cross that bridge when I come to it.<\/p>\n

\"Lilac<\/a>This piece is very value-dependent. I know that sounds ridiculous for a graphite pencil artist to say because all graphite drawings are value-dependent, but there is usually a bit of wiggle room. In this drawing, every time I adjust the value in one area, I must readjust the values in another location. It\u2019s a bit maddening.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason for my concern about value is that I want to ensure the center leaves of the composition are lighter than most of the surrounding leaves, so they will attract the eye first. As I work around them to draw the rest of the piece, I must keep that in mind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I never tire of how well graphite mimics texture. Even after all these years, it still feels like magic when I hatch a leaf and it looks like a leaf! I think that\u2019s because when I draw, I deconstruct the photo reference in my mind. For example, I don\u2019t draw \u2018a leaf\u2019; I draw a pattern of light and dark areas. I see the leaf forming on the paper only after drawing a general area of abstract shapes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lilac<\/a> A word about pencil points: the texture created with a sharp pencil differs significantly from that of a dull pencil! Keep your pencils sharp to achieve that yummy graphite texture that resembles a watercolor wash. If you don\u2019t, you\u2019ll end up with a grainy look.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with a grainy look if that\u2019s what you want. The important thing is knowing how to control the texture you are creating.<\/p>\n

Softer leads can create a grainy look, regardless of how sharp the point is. For instance, I\u2019m working in a very dark, shadowy area using soft leads, and it\u2019s challenging to make the hatching match the rest of the drawing, where I used harder leads. Even though my pencil points are sharp, the hatching appears somewhat grainy. I\u2019m going over the grainy hatching with a harder lead to smooth it out because I want a consistent, smooth texture in this drawing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"grainIn this example, you can see grainy and smooth hatching. The grainy hatching (in the dark area) was done with a sharp B pencil, and the smoother hatching was done with a sharp H pencil. I didn\u2019t go over the darker hatching with a harder pencil to smooth it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m drawing in the dark right-hand lower corner, and it\u2019s frustrating because all the details are tiny and hard to separate visually. I\u2019m using my booklight again because it\u2019s a dark area, which adds to the difficulty level.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s the thing about drawing big, beautiful leaves: if you want to be faithful to reality, you must draw the background clutter around them too, because nature isn\u2019t tidy.<\/p>\n

And this drawing is done! I like the drawing. The central leaves stand out enough, which was a goal, and the overall composition is good. The leaves have a sculptural look that is pleasant, and their values vary enough to be interesting. I enjoyed working with the value scale and will continue to use it. I\u2019m pretty sure it will save time by helping me zero in on the correct values right away instead of guessing or sneaking up on them slowly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Happy Drawing Everyone,
\nCarol<\/p>\n

\"Lilac<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I begin, I would like to address two items: blog maintenance and a personal note. The images have stopped appearing in the blog sent to my mailbox, and I assume they are not appearing in your version either. I\u2019m trying to find out why. I\u2019ve toggled off an application option, which I suspect is … Continue reading “Lilac Leaves”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drawing-technique-48"],"yoast_head":"\nLilac Leaves - Carol's Drawing Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.toadhollowstudio.com\/wp_blog\/2025\/05\/lilac-leaves-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lilac Leaves - Carol's Drawing Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Before I begin, I would like to address two items: blog maintenance and a personal note. 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