Update: 08/06/22: If only I had known about trace down paper when I was drawing this!! It would have made the whole process much easier and less drawn out than it ended up being, and I possibly would have been able to complete more drawings, rather than spending an inordinate amount of time on researching the sizes of the orchid, and then scaling it up (although I got the maths wrong, and ended up scaling it up by between 100-200 times, rather than 10-20…)
Over the past few weeks, I have been completing a drawing of the Montserrat Orchid, one of the plants off the endangered plant list.
For me, this was the most challenging plant to draw so far – because the reference image I was using was of a live specimen – meaning that it didn’t have any scale of reference for it (all of the herbarium specimens have a scale on the side, which allows you to see the actual size of each specimen – which has been important and useful for me when drawing them to scale). Therefore, I had to do some research (as I mentioned earlier in the blog), in order to discover the size of the plant. Unfortunately, according to the only source I could find, the flowers of the Montserrat Orchid are very small – each flower only being 2cm in size. As I knew I wouldn’t be able to capture the full detail of the flower at this size, nor did I have an image of the whole plant in flower from which to draw, I therefore decided to magnify the size of the image (in my drawing) by 100 times (I had meant to increase it by 10, but I unfortunately got my maths wrong), meaning that I could capture the detail of the flower.
My original idea had been to reference traditional botanical illustration in the composition of the drawing, and so I drew the flower in the bottom right of the page. I then began to draw the roots and stem of the plant above it on the left, at an angle. However, I was again having issues with the scale and sizing of the image (as I had no reference point), and the size of the roots were so small they were very difficult to draw. I therefore abandoned drawing them for the moment, and filled in the flower with colour, with the process shown below.
Coloured pencil is one of my favourite (if not my favourite) media to work in, as you can do so much with it, and it is so controllable. I have a lot of experience in using coloured pencil, although it was mainly in portraiture and in drawing objects that I had used it (see below), so it was an obvious choice for me, to want to try using it for my botanical illustrations.
I am extremely happy with the outcome. Although the drawing isn’t as ‘smooth’ as that achieved with watercolour, the coloured pencil allows for equal colour blending, resulting in a life-like illustration. My process of working with coloured pencils begins with creating a light base layer – in this case, a light layer of pale yellow, from which I can build up from. I then worked petal by petal around the flower, slowly building up the layers as I went along. I find it much easier and more effective to work this way, rather than building the layers up over the whole illustration in one go. I would much rather focus on a smaller area, as it provides a much greater sense of satisfaction and achievement when you complete it, and spurs you on to finish the next section.
I hadn’t drawn a coloured pencil drawing for a good few years before completing this one, so there was an element of the unknown about it. However, I am very glad that I did decide to work with them again, as it was an experience I very much enjoyed; I felt that I had complete control over what I was doing, and nothing had to be left to chance, which was something that had been happening in my previous illustrations, due to the media that I have been working in. Additionally, working in coloured pencil refers to the works of Hazel Wilks, another illustrator from Kew Gardens, who, unlike Lucy Smith, does use coloured pencil in her practice as a botanical illustrator.
