Final drawing

I wasn't going to post this, as I am not happy with how it turned out. However, I am trying to be looser and open to the mistakes, so here it is!

For some reason I decided to use multiple ideas and references (including being unable to decide even which queen of hearts leaf style to draw) - so it ended up stylistically uncommitted and confused - messy in the wrong ways! And I spent too long on it!

It was done pretty much entirely in the Eaglehawk brush, except for the background texture.

I think I will try again with a single reference later. 

Timed plant drawings

 

I felt a bit more comfortable being looser and sketchier with the plants and leaves than the pots on their own. I was most happy with the rubber plant. Still struggling with the markers the most. Although I think it's fuzzy edge texture could be good for other cactuses. Or something. 

 

Warm-up exercises

I thought I'd try posting some WIP, and see if it makes me more likely to finish the project.

I started with 4m on the 2nd lot, but ended up fiddling a lot more to try and bring back some of the brush textures I lost when shading.

I am still struggling the most with the marker brush (even though markers are my fav traditional material, and I do love this brush for doodling, but I am really struggling to draw and shade with it).

I feel there was an improvement between the 1st and 2nd warm-ups (in terms of making the most of the brush texture), so hopefully the next ones are better again.

It's good to have this structure for paying more attention to the potential of specific brushes. I never noticed that big rough texture in gloaming before, which I like - works well for pots I think! I think I lost the nice flat texture it has in the base though - I'll try to keep more of it in the next ones.

 

Hmm, really struggling to stay loose as I add shading and try to keep the texture. I definitely start loose, but then I just can't stop myself fiddling. I will say these are still *relatively* loose, for me. Eaglehawk and Copperhead are a bit more interesting here, but not sure you can see at this size. 

 

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I tried again to be looser, but not sure I was any more successful than the last set. They are certainly pretty messy up close, but not sure they are as gestural and textured as I was hoping for. I will keep trying!