Observational drawing practice: still life and nature

1Drawing what is really there

Observational drawing means drawing from a real object in front of you, not from memory or from a photograph. It is how scientists recorded new plants and animals before cameras existed, and it is still how botanists, doctors, engineers and designers learn to look closely. Rwanda gives you endless subjects: banana leaves, a coffee branch heavy with red cherries, a maize cob, a snail shell, a feather, a pod from a flame tree, a stone from the river. This lesson brings together everything in the unit into one careful process, and trains the most important habit in art: looking more than you draw.

2Warm-up exercises for the eye

• Blind contour drawing (2 minutes): look only at the object, never at the paper, and move your pencil slowly along its edges as your eye travels along them. The result looks strange, but it trains your hand to follow your eye.
• Modified contour (5 minutes): the same, but you may glance at the paper briefly to place each new line.
• Negative-space drawing (5 minutes): draw only the gaps between the leaves of a plant or the handle and body of a mug. Gaps are shapes your brain has no fixed idea about, so you draw them as they really are.

3The observational drawing process

1. Choose and place the object or group, lit from one side.
2. Compose: make two or three thumbnails and choose the one that fills the page well, with a little space around the subject.
3. Block in the main shapes with light HB lines. Big shapes first, small details last.
4. Measure and check: compare sizes with your pencil at arm's length, and check angles by holding the pencil perfectly upright or level against the object.
5. Refine the contours. Vary the line weight: make the line darker and thicker on the shadow side and where one object overlaps another, and lighter and thinner on the lit side.
6. Add value: separate the light family from the shadow family, then add core shadows, reflected light and cast shadows.
7. Add texture and detail, most of all on the part you want the viewer to look at first, the focal point.
8. Step back and check from two metres away, then sign and date the drawing.

4Drawing natural forms

• Find the growth line first. A plant grows along its stems; draw the direction of the main stem, then attach leaves to it.
• See leaves as simple shapes (ovals, hearts, long blades) before you add the edges. A leaf turned towards you looks longer; a leaf pointing at you looks much shorter. This shortening is called foreshortening.
• Veins follow the surface. Draw the central vein first; side veins curve with the leaf like cross-contour lines.
• Nature repeats, but never exactly. Leaves on one stem are similar, not identical. Look for the differences: a torn edge, a curl, a spot.
• Make a study sheet. Naturalists draw one subject several times on the same sheet: the whole plant, a close-up of a flower, a seed, a section cut through a stem.

Worked example: a leafy twig with a fruit

Uwase draws an avocado twig with three leaves and one small fruit.

1. Growth line: she draws the twig as one light curve leaning to the right.
2. Measure: using the fruit as her unit, the longest leaf is 2.5 fruits long and the twig is 4 fruits long. She draws the fruit 3 cm long, so the leaf is 2.5 × 3 = 7.5 cm and the twig 4 × 3 = 12 cm.
3. Leaves: the leaf pointing towards her is foreshortened, so she draws it as a short, wide oval, not a long one.
4. Value and texture: the light comes from the left, so the right side of the fruit gets a core shadow and there is a cast shadow on the paper below. She blends the smooth leaves, stipples the bumpy fruit skin, and uses darker contour lines on the shadow side.
5. Check: she squints to confirm the light and shadow families, and checks the negative shapes between the leaves.

5Make it: a nature study sheet

1. Collect one natural object: a leaf, a pod, a shell, a feather, a flower or a stone. Never pick a whole plant or disturb animals; fallen things are best.
2. On one A4 sheet, draw it four times: a 1-minute gesture, a 2-minute blind contour, a full tonal drawing at life size, and a close-up of its texture, three times bigger than life.
3. Add notes in neat small writing: the date, the place, the real size and the colours you see.
4. Final piece: on a new sheet, make an observational drawing of a still life or natural form with at least five values, a cast shadow and three different textures.

6Self-assessment checklist

7Look closely

In 1788 an artist named Ludwig Pfleger made this study sheet of an elm tree, first sketching in black chalk and then adding watercolour. It is a model of observational drawing.

• One sheet shows several stages of the same tree: a twig in flower, a twig with its papery seeds, a leafy twig and the seeds on their own, drawn small at the bottom.
• Compare the two pieces of trunk. The one on the left shows rough, deeply grooved bark; the split one on the right shows smooth wood grain. Each texture is drawn with completely different marks.
• Find the light: a grey cast shadow falls on the ground to the left of the bark-covered log, so the light is coming from the right.
• Notice the saw-toothed edges and the parallel veins of the leaves: detail that only comes from looking closely.

Practice