Botanical Sketching: Draw a Cotton Branch with Alcohol Markers

1. Trailer: Drawing is a magical process. When you see how I'm just come to live from an emptiness on a white sheet. I like to try different materials, but for now, I'm absolutely in love with this markers. Why?. Because of that bright, saturated and you could achieve beautiful smooth color transitions. Unlike paints, you don't have to deal with water jars, brushes, pixels and other stuff like that. It's just markers and paper. Markers are easier to learn for the beginners. All you need is a little time investment to achieve a nice result. In my new skill share class we'll draw a step-by-step illustration of a cotton wrench From a pencil sketch to full sketch illustration using a minimum of materials. Welcome to my class. I hope you will enjoy it. 2. Class Project: [MUSIC]. In my previous class I have told in detail about the markers, paper and additional materials. Also, that glass covers topics of techniques used working with markers. I would recommend to watch it first or you can jump right in and refer to that class when you need it. As a class project, we will draw a cotton branch. As usually you can draw from nature or from the references I've prepared for you. You can find them in the class attachments section. 3. Materials : We will work with alcohol-based markers. There are different types in quantity, manufacture, and price. This topic, as well as other materials we will use are correct in my previous class. In short, for this project, we need to minimize set of materials. Smooth thick paper, three or four brown markers from light to dark tone. Three or four gray markers, again, from light to dark tone. A pencil, a liner, and an eraser. 4. Pencil Sketch: So let's start with our pencil sketch. We will need pencil and eraser in this step. The first thing we should do is to understand where we should place the branch. Because it will be just one object. I think it's better to place it in the middle. We'll draw the vertical axis? Then we draw approximately the circles and we plan where the cut off flowers will be. Then we draw the main branch. Then begin to add details. Don't strive for faulty rallies and so there is no need to convert every little thing. Just try to keep the overall shape and proportions and don't be afraid to screw pumps and you have n raise it. The main thing is to look carefully at as a reference or your nature. Don't press too hard on your pencil. I will place so lines will be visible on the medium. Let's remember, hard lines will leave marks evenly erased. Don't press too hard. Okay, here it is. Our initial sketches ready. Now really removes the top pencil layer using an eraser. Now we can proceed to the outline stage. 5. Liner Inking: We have our pencil sketch and the next step is outlining. With your color liner and start outlining the sketch. I use a Micron 0.5 liner, but you can use either you favorite one or the one that is at hand. Just make sure it's not very thick because you can lose all the airiness of cotton. Try not to pull up the liner too often to avoid line breaks. Don't get upset if you slip a bit and miss a line or your line is not straight. Natural object are not perfect [inaudible] by default. We are making an illustration here, not, say, photorealism game. The flowers themselves are only slightly outlined so they will retain their airiness. Now, we need to completely remove the pencil remains. They're ready for coloring. 6. Coloring. Part 1: Now, it's time to add some color. Let's start with the branches. When working with markers, it's always better to go from lighter tone to darker because it's easier to shadows than make some colors lighter. I take the lightest brown and start making the initial fill of the entire branch. Yes, if you don't have fancy two-sided fold paper, then don't forget to put an inter-layer as I do. Because otherwise, markers will bleed to the other side of your sketchbook, or directly on your table. In general, the basic algorithm working with markers is, first, I make a light substrate, then, we workout the shades with a medium tone. We blend it with light one. Then, we darken the shadows even more, and again soften the transition with the light one. Okay, now we take a medium brown and start to work on the shadows [inaudible]. Here we work with strokes. We don't have a goal to get a super smooth transition. On the trunk, the shadow is on the right. So we put it there, as you can see from the reference, the trunk and the branch is different in color. But this is not important to us, so we make them with the same color. Okay, now take the lightest marker and blur at the borders a bit. Now, we begin to strengthen the shadows with the darkest one. As we can see, there is a dark shadow under the flowers themselves, and again it's on the right. It takes a medium tone and again blur the border a little bit. Then, we mix the colors with the lightest tone. I use one of darkest browns to add some more depths to the shadows. But it's not necessary or it can be replaced with the dark gray one. Don't reach the edge, leaving it reflects to preserve the volume of our trunks. Again, we go through the light areas with our lightest one marker to distinguish them. Now we add some texture with dark-brown strokes, and lighten our a transition. Now, I'm doing the same thing on the buds. Then, we check where the shadows are and add the middle tone there. Then deepen the shadows even more, and then to blend the colors, take the lightest one, making that transition smoother. The next bud, again we work with strokes. To add color-some texture, it's good to add some veins. I take the dark, I use number 95 and first I deepen the shadows on the butt and the branch. The lightest again, to mix the colors and the last part. It's all in the shade, so there will be more brown tone here. Here's a shadow from the trunk. It's generally dark and can be completely painted always with medium brown. Then the darkest places. Now we blur the transition with a medium brown. To brighten up a little some places you can add a lightest brown. Well, the trunk is dry and the markers have become lighter. For now, I want to deepen the shadows further in the darkest places. Again, I take the darkest is brown and go through the darkest places. We keep reflex in mind, so try not to reach the edge. The blur of the border again with a lighter brown. I use the lightest tone to mix colors but it's not necessarily you can leave the shadow more graphical and sharp. 7. Coloring. Part 2: We have a white cotton flowers. To show the white color, we will use gray tones. We tag the lightest gray, I have 0.5. At the reference we can see that we have dark places on the top of the flower. We start walking through these dots to keep the evenness of cotton. If you have no brush sip on your marker, you can do the same sink using a broad tip. It's dark here near the leaves. Well my marker is over, so I'll take the same color but with a broad tip. Now I take a darker gray. I have number one here and begin to deepen the shadow areas, also leaves dots. Then with my darker one gray I use number three. I'm gaining the tone of the shadow. But here we're applying dots close to just enter all the flower. You can also add the light gray if you want to. Now, I take the darker tone. I use number five and neatly add in the darkest place. Carefully the trying not to make the flower too dark. Remember, the marker will dry and become lighter. If you want, you can still take the darkest one. I use number seven, and add some dots in that center very carefully. In the same way we work on the remaining two flowers. The last one is almost completely in the shade. Then [inaudible] more great tone. Here in the middle we see the brown spots form the leaf sizing. I'll take the medium brown, and I'll set some small dots. Now the dark is brown and edit it to the center. You can also add a little bit of the dark is gray here. Well, the main part is finished. Time to move to detail. 8. Final Touches : In general, our sketch is ready, but we can decorate it a little more. We take the liner and outline the contour again in the shadow part, thereby strengthening the contrast. You can add some texture with the lines in some places, but be gentle. To preserve airiness, don't outline anything on the buds, otherwise they will look too root. Now we can add some decorative elements with a white gel pen and white pencil. With a pencil we can work our light zones a little just to highlight them and enhance the contrast. Slightly spread a pencil as if desaturated it. With a wide gel pen, we add some decorative dots. Just a little bit, so our illustration won't become over decorated. Well, our sketch of cotton branch is ready. 9. Final Thoughts: Well, we have finished drawing cotton branch. Don't you see that painting with markers isn't difficult and even can be fun. Practice every day and soon you will get better and better results. I hope you enjoyed drawing with me, and thank you for a positive feedback.