Drawing Flowers: How to Make Drawing Peonies with Pencil Easy

1. Peony Drawing Introduction: Hello and welcome. In this peony drawing class, we will learn how to take a complex subject, the festival maxima peonies, which are these beautiful white lash peonies. Turn it into a beautiful graphite drawing, where we go from a simple geometric block in to refining it through adding three-dimensional tone, and then finally adding beautiful texture through hatching. And it is my goal for this class that you enjoy the process, that you grow in your understanding how you can take complex subjects and simplify them. And that it's just a matter of breaking things down and being willing to slow down. And take the view, the experience as a meditative process. And it is my pleasure to teach this class because I absolutely loved drawing. Drawing informs all of my art. It is through drawing that I find that I truly learn and understand the beauty of the flowers in the world. And it is my hope that you too will really grow in your appreciation of drawing and also in the process and how that process can be a beautiful meditation and admiring beautiful flowers. I mean, there's so much beauty in the world. And by drawing, we, it's like by drawing week to love and admire and connect with nature at a whole nother level. And that is my goal for you, is that at the end of this class, you have a drawing that you are proud of, that you have connected with these peony flowers with a whole nother level. And that it's just been a wonderful experience for you. So let's dig in. 2. Peony Drawing Materials: Hello. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about the materials you can use for this drawing project. It is really just a paper and graphite drawing project. Which means that you can use printer paper and even just like a regular pencil, like this From with an eraser, just any old pencil. However, I have used some specific materials and I wanna go over the materials that I did use to create this beautiful peony drawing. I used Strathmore Bristol paper and I used the smooth surface. And this is an 11 by 14 sheet. So that is what I used for the paper. And then for graphite, I used a 0.3 mechanical pencil with this lead. It's an HB hardness of lead and then I have to lead holders. So you can see the point, let me share with you the point I use to lead holders a to B and a for B and I use, this is the lead I like to use. And I use a point holder. Holder, which helps me sharpen and let me, I'll demonstrate real quick. So you make sure your lead is out enough from the point you put it in to the lead holder and then you just spin. Then you have a beautiful, very nice, very sharp point. And it makes for wonderful side effects. So those are the pencils in the lead holder that I use. I use a kneaded eraser, which I like. I am prone. I like to use the fabric Estelle kneaded eraser. And then I have to do fancy other erasers that I use. And this is a Tombow mono 0. And if you notice it's long and skinny. And this is another Tombow Mono Zero, but it's a rectangle square. And so through for this drawing, these are the materials I used paper, these three pencils, and these three erasers. I go into explaining why I use each one of them in the, in the drawing demonstrations. And in the next lesson, I'll actually demonstrate that the uses of these pencils, and that's it. It's very simple. And one, however, I do want to talk about why do I choose these pencils over, say, an artist's drawing kit, or just a regular pencil? Well, first of all, a regular pencil is only HB lead where an artist's drawing pins, artist's drawing pencils where I have HB to be in for b means that that is a harder lead and so it draws lighter. This is the softest lead and that I am using. And it draws darker, leaves, a darker footprint on your paper. And I can use, and for years I did use these prismacolor, artist's drawing pencils. The thing is they need to be sharpened so often that I go through them quickly where I find when I'm traveling. If the tips break because the tips aren't protected, That's annoying. Where for example, with a lead holder, when you're not drawing, you just put you just open it up and put it in and it's closed in, that tip is protected. Same goes for a 0.3 mechanical pencil in that when my lead is not being used, I tip it in and it's ready to go. With the mechanical pencil, my lead point always stays the same width. This, of course it does get wider as it gets used, but it's so easy to sharpen. And as I said, when you, when you walk around sometimes with my drawing, with my pencils, the tip stay protected. Okay. Thank you so much. 3. Lesson 1: Pencil Demonstration: Okay, now I want to demonstrate why I use the different pencils and what do I use them for? So for a mechanical pencil, I have a 0.3 and I leave the, I push the lead out quite a bit. When I want to talk about, is that how I hold my pencil varies the pressure. So when I hold my pencil at the very end, I put down very soft. My lines tend to be softer. And as I, that's my middle level, they get a little bit darker. And then when I choke up really a lot, they might. So the way I hold my pencil affects and influences my the pressure. Now, another thing is when I wanna do at a tone, I always hold my pencil at the very end. Because if I choked up on the front, what happens is the angle. It's a lot harder to create a straight line and back-and-forth. Yes, I can do it. But it's like I'm fighting against the angle of my of my wrist. So when I hold the pencil back, I have a larger radius. And it just makes it so much easier to create a back-and-forth to tone. And this is like my HB. And of course when I'm holding back further back, it does mean that I am adding it lighter, but my HB is the hardest lead. So therefore it goes on the lightest onto the paper. Now I want to show you my Tooby. So my to-be is the next level of dark lead. And so if I hold it back light, I can create some really wonderful. And I'm essentially showing you the same pressure that I use there. And so then if I'm halfway, my pressure gets just a little bit darker. And then when I get tighter up, I have the ability to really create some time. Now when I'm adding tone, I always want my tip to be the sharpest when I begin, so I always sharpen and then you will have some graphite dirt on it. So I always keep a Kleenex and I wipe it off before I start. And again, I I tend to hold my when I'm adding tone or adding hatching, I always hold my pencil way in the back so that way I can get my lines as parallel as possible. And I'm using the same pressure that I used for the HB. But as you can see, it goes on darker. And see how, when the point is really sharp, it gets into the groove of the of the paper and this is me going over it a second time. Now let's look at the four B, C. I've got a brand new point on it so I don't need to sharpen. So again, soft touch, medium touch, and then tighter touch. That wonderful. And you can see between the HB, the Tooby and the Furby. Same pressure, different, you know, different dark, level of darkness. And then here is the four beat adding tone. I will sometimes flip and rotate my pencil. So that way I can keep my point a little bit more pointy, especially with the number four because the graphite goes off on the paper so quickly that you end up, you end up using up your point very quickly with a for B, okay, So these are my pencil supplies that I'm using for this class. 4. Lesson 2: Analyzing the Photo Reference: I want to talk about how I think about the big shapes, the abstract shapes, and how I break them down. These two flowers, they are piano, Festina maxima peonies. And they have quite a bit going on in them. They're very, they're very florid. They've lots of petals and everything that, however, they can still be simplified and, and put into, into like the idea of bigger shapes. So this is what I'm gonna do, is I'm going to talk about how I think about my flower. So oftentimes with the peony in particular, I often will look at like my, like my central node. And that's, that's the thing that I look. That is what helps me measure and where I, where I measure from. So first of all, that's my node right there. And then I think about like I see a diagonal there. I see another diagonal there. I have this wonderful triangular shape right here. And then there's a secondary triangular shape inside. And then you've got the inside triangle shape. You have this kind of faceted diamond shape. Then I also like to look for like my plumb lines. And so there's a plumb line where This edge of that petal, this petal interact with each other. So that's a very important thing to know about when I'm measuring and scaling. Here's a wonderful diagonal right there. And then we end up having like some triangles that create some diagonals there. There's a little triangle right here in shape. Then we also have that kinda of a polygon. But like I guess if we carried it out, it would be a triangle. That triangle right there meets up with the edge of that. Okay? And then there is a curve. And then these two are curves, so I tend to just will create those. And I don't identify them so much as, as true shapes. And then let's look at this, the other peony. And so the P, this peony is more open and slight different angle. And then here again, that's my important node right there. And I use that as a measuring point. So now that I've got that wonderful little red there. So from that shape, eye, nose and my other shapes come off of it. And the way p.stance knees are that there's a they are designed or they have a center. And they're usually a ball. And then their petals fall out from it. And then if you're seeing it from straight on top view, that's kind of the view that we would get. The two flowers that we're looking at. We're looking at it on the side. So we see it more as a, I think of it as a cup, but then has petals that are fallen out from it. And not only do they fall out to the side, but they also fall out foreshortened towards us as well. Then this one's a three is a three-quarter view. So we see the cup in, or it's a ball and we can actually think of it. This one Is, this one is, so it's a sphere and this is our shadow shape. And then we have petals that come off of it In different. And depending this ball casts a shadow here. And depending on how things go, you have different shadows. So those are the big shapes and that is what I'm going to be blocking in for the, the initial drawing. And these are, you know, I think about these abstract shapes. I think about how, how they interplay. And when I'm first doing a drawing, I really like to make sure that I'm thinking about all of that. And like for example, with this one, we have, those are the outermost petals right here. But then we have all of this that's going on as it's fallen out from the center ball. And it's always good for us to remember that if we, if we first think about these big geometric shapes, our brain can more easily and more quickly start to simplify and kind of organize and understand what's going on. Because we have a lot of there's a lot of information that's going on with these, with these two flowers that we're going to draw today. 5. Lesson 3: Big Shape Block-in: I am getting ready to start my block in. And as I showed you how I'm thinking about the big shapes, I'm going to start my block in with drawing in those big shapes with the 0.3 mechanical pencil. And using this lead, I went to orientate my drawing so that the flowers take up the center. I don't want it to be too close to one edge or the other. I'm using an 11 by 14 sheet of paper of Bristol, Bristol board paper, smooth finish. I have my board slightly on an angle so that way it all works out. Let's get that going. Okay. So I want the flower to be between here and here. Which means that. So the, the peony is tip of the leaf goes from here, an edge of pedal to there. And then I go, Okay, So that helps me out. So I'm thinking about my big shapes. I am placing on my drawing, on my paper. My node is about right there, so that means, okay. Okay, there we go. Then I've got Here we go. So, you know, when I'm measuring and when I'm starting a new drawing and thinking about my big shapes, I am constantly thinking about the big shapes and how they interact with each other. And the nice thing about doing a drawing and blocking it in with a very light pencil is that first of all, you first get, you get a very nice sensitive touch with a lot of the wiggle of what we, as we have with as we're retouching. And I don't want my drawing to be too, too mechanical. I want it to have a little bit of. And what I noticed too, I just drew my leaf and a little bit too low, but that's where I want it to end. So now I know I need to bring it up and bring it to there. So another reason why you draw very lightly is so that way you don't damage your paper surface. Because if you draw too hard, you're at risk of dentine your paper. When you do that, then when you start to add tone and another bit right there. Okay, so when you start to add tone, it will, it will get, it will be negative. So you'll get a white spot on it so you don't want that. So that's my shadow there, that's my inner node. I've got a cast shadow there. So sometimes when I'm measuring something difficult, I'm not using the outside items to measure, but I'm using items that are the shapes like cast shadows, form shadows to to help me place things. Okay, I think this is a good start for the first flower. And now I'm going to block in the next flower. And one of the things that I'm gonna do is I'm going to start working on adjacencies. So I want to, I want to make sure that I've accounted for the way the flower interact. This is a pedal. And then we have another shape that interacts right there. It might be a little bit lower hip. So I'm always measuring, like if I make a mistake, which happens all the time, I adjust. One of the things about art. Art is a, is a constant push and pull of things coming together, things not coming together and then like adjusting and adapting. I am still just have it working at it drawing. And you'll notice that most of my curves are not curved lines, but instead, I sneak up to all my curves using straight lines. Which do you think that's a little bit higher, so the node is just a little bit higher up. And then the petals. Once I get to a certain stage. Here, I do not have much graphite on my paper right now. So you'll notice that I'm just kind of going all over. But the next phase, I'm actually going to get a sheet of paper that will protect the paper from my hands because there are oils in our, in our hands that will affect the surface of the paper. That's my block and there's more I can refine. But that is where I want to be on this drawing at this point, very, very soft using a mechanical pencil. So that way my lines are very, very small and very delicate and minimal pressure. And I should point out that when I'm drawing, especially when I want to draw lightly in softly, I always hold my pencil way back. And that allows for me to have a really soft touch. And doesn't I don't have I'm not putting down as much pressure just because naturally you do not put as much pressure down. And then the nice thing about using 0.3 is that if I use a hard pressure that the LED will break. So here I'll demonstrate. It also forces me having to 0.3 forces me to keep my pressure soft, extra soft. So that is my big shape block in right now. 6. Lesson 4: Line Drawing, First Flower: Because I'm now starting in the phase where I will be having a little bit more graphite on my paper. I will use a sheet of paper, just this is just printer paper as my, as my hand guard. And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to refine the drawing and I'm going to actually start with the larger flower. And part of this refinement is making my lines a little bit harder in identifying, fine tuning my edges just a little bit in some of this stuff that I want to make sure that I catch with a little bit more intention because I realized all fine art is about is an iterative process and that you go through one phase and then you develop in you enhance the next phase. And you start to see things that need to be altered and adapted and enhanced and refined. And it's just a matter of just enjoying the process. I really want to encourage you guys to think about just the joy and the beauty of the process. Our brain often likes to tell us that we have to go faster and all of that. Use this opportunity as an opportunity to explore your ability to think and concentrate and admire in Meyer beauty that is a fundamental we are all humans love is to admire beauty and to get that time and space for us. So I am not going to draw every petal that's refinement, but this is refining the block and I just wanted to make sure that some of my aspects of my measurements are accurate. And if they're not, what, you know, where do I need to fix them? And there's little things that I want to emphasize than I do. I'm looking Still focusing on big shapes. I'm not trying to get into the details too fast as you can. You can overload your brain really fast if you get too much into the details too fast. One of the things I am doing also is I'm going to start putting in some of my shadow shapes too. That helps. I find always when I put in the shadow shapes, some of the cast and form shadows. I start to understand my, my drawing subject so much more. So that is what the stage is about, is it's the, it's the, the phase where I am learning. What are all the little details? My, my drawing of my subject. And it just is getting me one more level of awareness and familiarity before I move on and start rendering the form. Creating this, shifting this drawing from being in a line drawing to a drawing that has a sense of three-dimensionality on my on my paper. I do go through, correct. I erase some of the lines that I've previously had on. Then of course, I know as the process of drawing continues on, I will have areas where I'll need to make probably some pretty big corrections. There's always that and I'm never like totally set to how I'm drawing. I do try to aim for a certain level of accuracy just because it makes four, it makes for an easier experience. Now, like I pointed out, it's the deep node right here, and that's like the deepest part of the flower. So I always, I always pay attention to that. Here's a mono eraser and there you can see what it is. It's a very small like nibs eraser mono 0. And so right now I'm using a kneaded eraser and my mono. And then this petal starts here, but it goes, it goes down pretty low. And then it loops and then we have another. So I'm using straight lines to make curves. Like I'm always thinking about the angle. So if I have that angle in relationship to another angle, another edge. I just noticed that my drawings off right there. Now I'm going to restart. There's always a lot going on in a peony. And so one of the goals as we're drawing peonies is to simplify the shapes and forms. So that way they work together. You've got your block in. And then I find that it's always helpful to do this refining block end because the initial block in is to look at the big shapes and to get the gesture of the flower drawing down. If you notice, I'm still pretty wiggly. And the wiggle is that gesture. I think some of the most beautiful drawings out there are the ones that have a little bit of wiggle in them. When I was in architecture school, we called it the dither. A drawing that has some dither and it creates a very evocative and emotive drawing. And the most important thing we do as artist is create an emotional connection with other people. Get rid of some of these construction lines. So construction lines hold lots of purposes. They help us identify, like right here. That's a cache shadow from the center area. I also use construction lines sometimes when I'm dropping a plumb line or when I'm filling out an edge. And so that's what this one is. We need to make it a little bit bigger or just adjust it a little bit. So it needs to be this flower petal comes out and then there's a little bit tighter, I guess that's it. There's more going on than I initially realized. There we go. Then there's an overlap. Okay. So I've got those two and those two setup. Now. It's time to work on, it's time to work on this flower. 7. Lesson 5: Line Drawing, Second Flower: I'm going to check that my plumb lines are lining up correctly. And what I'm noticing is that that's the edge. So that means this flower and leaf might be at the right edge of this petal is not in the right location. It's actually more like right there. And the end of this leaf comes, Oh, it actually comes down a bigger, it's like right there. So that tells me that I have to restructure the upper flower, so not a ton. All drawings require that in and out. And I really want to encourage you guys to give yourself grace when you started drawing. If you feel that like, oh, I exaggerated that or oh, that needs to be a little bit bigger or oh, that needs to be lifted up. It's a okay. So but what I'm gonna do is I'm actually going to do no, I need to work there and adjust, but I am going to first realized that I have a little bit tighter tangent tos. I'm going to work centrally and move out. Okay? So when I'm thinking about my diagonals are my angles, I'd like to think about this pedal comes here and that pedal comes down, and then there is some, some stuff going on. But then this pedal continues over and that looks about right. And then it comes into the center. And then there's this cache shadow right here of this petal on to that petal. And then there's cast shadow from this flower petal into the center where there's than the node of this flower is. So I'm going to fit together and it looks like my angles incorrect, it's more upright. And then that helps me because there's there's a form there and then this comes off and that form looks accurate twos. Now I'm going to move over here. And so let's look at it in relationship now, let's look at the two everything together. But now as I move over, I do not want my hand rubbing on all that, all that graphite. So I move my paper with me and it's okay. It all works out. There's a whole bunch of like little wiggly things in there. And then there's this petal right here, two angles. So it's slight curve, but i'm, I'm finding that by two angles instead. Measuring from here to there. So I've got a whole bunch of lines there. So I've got to get rid of some stuff. Hey, when there is leftovers of eraser, I get rid of it. I do not use my hand to get rid of the eraser. The plumb line is more closer that there. There's lots of shadow shapes going on here. So I'm going to actually put a couple of lines of identifying these different shapes. And there's like a bold right there. And then in relationship to this petal, this triangular petal has some commonality to, so I want to join that commonality. Okay, So this is the end of refining blocking until almost the whole drawing is kinda put together. Now, there's a couple of things that need to be like probably refund even more. But for now, it's an excellent spot. And so the steps we've taken so far is big shape block in and then refining the block in. The next step is adding tone. It looks beautiful and I am so excited to start the next phase. 8. Lesson 6: Adding Tone, Pencil Differences Comparison: And I'm going to continue to use my 0.3 millimeter consult. And the reason why is because it will give me in the long run to the best and most consistent even tone. And that point stays super sharp for the whole duration of the drawing. Where if I was using a regular pencil, this is a B pencil. And it's a pretty sharp tip right there. But as it, as I use it to create tone, it loses some of its refinement. And so then therefore it doesn't, it doesn't add an even amount of tone. It doesn't get into the grooves of my papers. So here let me show you an example. That's actually pretty nice, right? But as my pencil gets dollar and not as pointy the grain, it won't fit into the grain of the paper as much as I would like it. So see how, see here how the grain is starting to show it. And that's because my pencil is getting dollar. I'm gonna go I can go over it. Upsets. Where if I have a 0.3 pencil, is my tip, stays the same diameter the whole way. I have. I have a greater precision of adding an even tone. I'm trying to go parallel, make my lines as parallel as possible. So this is in real time. So that way you can see it because when we, for the first layer of adding tone, we then I use Kleenex to you get a better, more even tone with the mechanical pencil. Of course, you can continue to use just a regular old pencil if you want to. Just make sure you're always sharpening it probably every, you know, every, definitely for every about that much. So mechanical pencils just become more easy. 9. Lesson 7: Adding Tone, First Flower: For this lesson, we are going to start adding 3-dimension to this line drawing by adding tone value shapes. And I'm going to continue to use my 0.3 millimeter consults. I'm going to start here. Okay, So I'm putting basic tone down, but what I wanted to talk about is when I squint my eyes. Even though, in comparison, this flower petal is significantly lighter than what's going on back there. This one, if I compare, I squint my eyes and look at this flower petal in relationship to what's going on over, say over here. It's dark, it's overall like a middle gray. So that tells me that I still need to add a tone to it similar to this one, I added a slight tone because even though it is darker than its adjacent areas, it is still darker than what's going on on the, say, the light side of my flowers. So with that in mind, I also need to like this, this portion of the flower petal. I've gone over it in a couple of directions. And then I went over it again this direction as I was carrying forward, carrying on. So I'm going to essentially cross hatch because my direction of the tone that I've applied is this direction. Then to make sure that I can get into my grooves, i'm, I'm going to create tone, but I'm going to apply my pencil going cross across. And so that's what I'm gonna do. And I'm going to add, I'm always gonna be paying attention to see like yes, adjacent. These might be, this might be darker and this might be significantly lighter. But then I need to look at what is the value of this petal in relationship to the whole context of the flower. And if I squint my eyes and realize it's still falls into my, say, my dark side, my shadow side of the flower. That means I know I need to add some tone to it, and that's what I'm gonna do right now. I have a cast shadow right there. And this is catching light. And then there's shade here. Then there's like there's some really darkness going on in here, but there's a couple of light strands, so I gotta be careful. I want to make sure that I'm capturing what needs to be captured. And I'm going to refine my edge. Really dark right here. There's a little bit of a triangle shapes. So I'm going to put that triangle in. And if you notice, I'm choking up on my pencil, that gives me, I can put down a little bit more pressure. Make sure to watch the lesson where I go over the three different pencils. Graphite is a use and the different hatching and how I hold the pencil. So that way you'll understand why I sometimes choke up on a pencil and sometimes why I don't. The quick answer is you can apply more pressure when you choke up on the point. And as you've pushed full back, you have it's lighter. It's a lighter touch. Okay, so I'm going to quickly add some tone on these elements over here. Really soft, so I'm holding my pencil at the very, very end. So that is adding tone to the first flower. And now I want to unify my tone so I get a Kleenex and I start to make sure I get rid of all of the any bit of hatching or line work. Now, that guy gets a little bit of dirty, like paper towel, goes for right there. He's gonna get erased out because that petal right there is very light. So, you know, drawing is always a bit of a push and a pool guys, there's always something that might need to get a little bit of tone like right here needs to be some tone right there. I'm gonna put some tone there. Here we go. Okay, so that is the first flower. Oh, I just realized I didn't add tone, so let me do that real quick. Oh, I actually wanna get, wanted to draw in a bit of the veins of the, the leaf. The veins will help me because this is a big, big leaf so I can actually use the veins and to help me segment of when I'm adding tone. There we go. 10. Lesson 8: Adding Tone, Second Flower: Okay, Now it's time to start with adding tone to this peony. I'm going to start left to right. And that will be to reduce any smearing of graphite. I will be using my sheet of paper to as a hand rest. So that way the oils from my hands will not be getting on the surface. And eventually I will then unify the tone with the Kleenex. So let's get started. I'm squinting my eyes and I've already like slightly don't drawn in with very soft touches. This cast shadow right here. But I have not done so on here. And when I squint my eyes, that shape comes out pretty strong. So that means that I want to actually get that in because that will help me speed up my drawing process. And there's areas here that are catching lights that are lighter, and then there's areas that are like a middle value. And also when you squint your eyes, you can break things down into your lightest and darkest. Right now, I see like a, like a lightest, a light like a medium light and then a medium dark and then dark. So that's for value shifts, for value areas that I'm going to, I'm going to simplify and put my tones in that wife initially. Let's get started. So I'm holding my pencil again, far back, so it's a soft touch, so I'm not grooving my paper. Now this part of the tone needs to be darker. So I'm gonna go back over it. Then I'm gonna go over it as a cross hatch or across the direction than I originally went. And sometimes I'll even like shifting, switch my paper around to help with my with the crosshatching because this is a very comfortable hatch direction for me. So I'll just switch my paper around. This is this flower petal right here is catching light, but it's darker in this flower petal is also catching light. But, but this over here is darker in value. It's not as dark as what's going on there. I identified as my medium dark value versus like a medium light. And the medium lights tend to be over here. So let's get started. I squint medium dark, even though like compared to that, it's darker. But compared to this, it's lighter. There's some variety here. They are lighter than the dark here, but darker than the light, the adjacent light. This is my medium dark. See how I patch quilted this big shape with different hatches. And then I can reinforce and create a little bit more unity. Here, darker. There are times when I'm just going to give a whole, the whole area tone, I'm going to create some unity. Cast shadow. I squint my eyes this whole area here, it's lighter than what's going on here. It's darker than these adjacent. So I'm going to actually create just a basic tone. Knowing that I'll have to refine that in the next and the refining layer. Shadows. See, okay, so I've got to darken some areas there, and there's a couple of things over here, not a ton. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to allow this to be considered my lights, so I'm not gonna do much shadow shape there. I do need to create, put in the leaf. Form. A little bit of shade here, a little bit of hatch. They're not a ton. That's very light. It's a little bit of tone. See, this guy still needs tone, so I'm gonna put tone, they're a little bit of shade here, but a tone. So that is first application of tone. And I'm pretty pleased with it. So I'm gonna go about right now, I want to unify this. So then right here, there's some halftones, but I can just look, I can just use my dirty paper towel to get me some of those very light tones like this flattening pedal will have to be erased out. There's no getting around that. And then I'll have to erase around. I can erase either that way or I can erase with one of my fancy pencil erasers. I've got two. Well, this is my favorite eraser, but I've got this one also that works for erasing up large swaths. And it's got a chisel edge so I can actually use it. I can actually draw with it. I'm going to continue unifying the unifying my tone and see how it you can use a stamp for this process to I just find a Kleenex is I always have a Kleenex available. I don't always have my stump available. And one of the reasons why I do this unifying phase is because it creates a good solid, like, it's like an underpainting, but it's an under drawing. And it just kind of immediately kinda creates a sense of very quickly. It creates some nice unity. There we go. So there's both flowers together. But before I go on to the next phase, I will spend a little bit of time erasing out my paper to hold my hand. A few more things I wanna do before I call this phase is complete. And that is I want to around the leaf. I like this very much. So that is where we are right now. The next phase is re-find the refining layers, and that is what I'm gonna do next. 11. Lesson 9: Hatching, First Flower: Okay, so now we are on the next stage of drawing to get it more refined. And what I wanted to do right off the bat is I want to get my darkest darks in. So I have, I've already drawn them in dark with the HB pencil, but now I want to get them in with regard to my darkest, like some of my darkest darks. And the Furby is a darker lead. Softer. And with that softness comes more graphite comes off the there, and then the leaf is also pretty dark. I'm going to actually get in over here. And with this portion of the drawing, I use hatch marks to create my visual interests. Granted, sometimes my hatch marks are so dense that it's almost like as if I'm adding tone, but in fact, I am, I am adding little tiny, precise hatch marks to create visual interest. I'm reinforcing lines. And again, I want some squiggle. I don't want everything to be too mechanical. I first go in with parallel lines. We didn't need to be reinforced. I crosshatch. Parallel lines are helpful and important. When I squint my eyes, it's dark is right there. So I want to make sure I emphasize, I also want to make sure that the edge of the white area of the flower really light. I want to make sure that that is as light as it can, as light as it needs to be. It's very dark here. So my hatch marks are tighter and I'm crossing. I also use the direction of my hatching as a means of defining the different planes in the form. Then like I think there's just a little bit and won't hurt to put in a little bit of cross hatching to emphasize that this is darker. So I'm going to I do not want a constant, same quality of line everywhere. Pretty soon I'm going to work here with my four B. But then I think the rest of my patches for this, except for the leaf, will be in to-be. But I'm going to continue working just real quick. I'm not going to be using Kleenex to smear and rub going forward. This is, this is hatching. Like only. Even with using a for B, I can adapt my pressure, create different quality of strokes. So like right now I'm working with a very light touch. I'm also the way my ain't my wrist is. I don't have as much control. So there's a little bit more like my lines are not as parallel as they are. When I'm holding a pencil like this, I've got this beautiful petal right here. I really love the feeling of that pedal. And that is gonna be to be not my fault that I'm working on. So I got to restrain. So that is with a for B, I'm switching to my tube. So it's a push and pull between your lights and darks too. You're constantly refining. There's a, there's a bit of a core shadow right here. This is a form shadow right on this petal right here. And then we've got some reflected light in here and it goes deeper. And then this, this edge of the petal is catching. So I wanna make sure I capture all of that. So what that means is actually the core shadow is a little bit more like right there. That's my core shadow, but then I have a little bit of form shadows. So I created a light hatch that has space between it. And then I'm gonna do the same light hatch over here. Now look at the difference. This area did not have the tone put down. And look at how the tone adds automatically when you hatch on top of it, you get a little bit more a deepening of visual effect. Like almost I should probably have tone here. So I'm going to actually just very closely had a little bit of tone. You can do that too. At times when you in the tone phase, you didn't apply tone in the spot, but then you notice that you actually need it later on. However you will have to, you want to unify that tone. So that means I have to go in with my paper towel and I'll have to rehash everything. But that's okay. That actually makes for a stronger drawing. And I'll always choose the stronger drawing over avoidance of doing a certain, a certain aspect of the drawing. So what I wanna do is now I'm going to cross hatch that form shadow, core, shadow of that pedal. Let's see what's going on. So pretty always, always guys, reinforce yourself. If you like, something's going, give yourself that quick kudos. I'm always aiming for beauty. So I make sure I point that out when something's going well and how lovely it is and how much I admire. It. Looks really nice. Look at that. It's still staying with the to-be right now. I'm going to work on creating some outlines and some wonderful wiggles. And then I will hatch the leaf in. I just noticed I laid in a couple of varies, a bit too dark. So when that happens, you can actually use your kneaded eraser tool to take it out some. So I'm going to actually soften just a little bit in my light, light area. I just have this pedal, that petal, this petal and this leaf. And now I'm gonna go back to my four b. This is my darkest. I'm going to put in solid. So for the leaf, my goal is to deepen the value of it. Here we go. Now I'm crosshatching. Pedal done. And again, my edges, I'm trying to, I want my, my line quality to be varied and I don't mind a little bit of wiggle, If anything, I like it because it adds for that natural sensitive. In nature, things are not machined. So there is a bit of variety. Then this flower petal, There's a little bit of foreshortening. I've got a, I'm actually going to cut that out. Here's a tip of a leaf there, but I'm gonna get rid of that. And what I'm gonna do is identify the foreshortened area and that there's a little bit of edge quality shift in value. A little bit of cast shadow right here. I'm going to put that cast shadow in. Erase parts where there needs to be, needs to be the lightest. There we go. And also I'm going to actually take and cut through some of my hatching. So there is the first peony drawn, and we'll move on to the next one, the next lesson. 12. Lesson 10: Hatching, Second Flower Part 1: Now we are going to work on the second peony, which is a larger and more complex. And again, I will be using my Tooby and for B lead, we'll be using hatch marks to on top of the tone shapes to give this flower some dynamic field to, I'll just say right now, I'm very excited about it. I'm going to start with my for me and I'm going to start in this area, which is my darkest area. My second darkest areas are down here. And then I have like a secondary there. And then there's some pretty interesting stuff going through here. And then everything that's going on in the light areas will be a combination of erasing out and putting in light hatch marks. But let's start over here. I need to reinforce a couple of lines. So I am reinforcing the drawings. Since when I added tone and unified everything, I lost some of the structure of the design and like the anatomy of this flower. So right now I'm going through and kind of re-establishing the line drawing. And I'm doing that with this drawing in particular because there is so much complexity going on with the first peony wasn't as necessary. But with this one, I feel that I need to reorganize everything. Again, there's no harm ever in redrawing something. And in truth, that is what I have come to think. Art is, art is always a push and pull of where you draw, maybe smudge down, and then you go back and you re-establish it. And that's kinda what, that's where I'm at right now with this drawing is am re-establishing aspects of this flower to make sure that everything is working out the way I want it to. Ultimately, this flower tip is catching light, so I want to make sure I get that in there. I've got some they're catching light. Same goes for here. I'm going to capture this little, not as kitchen lights. I'm going to do that. There's a node right here, that's kitchen light. I will erase out of it. And then the edge right here. So the edge of this flower is catching light. Capture that edge, draw with that edge. When I squint my eyes, this flower petal is light in relationship to how it looks like in the background. However, when I squint my eyes to it and compare it to the other, like lightness to the like. These flower petals or that flower petal there, it is still significantly dark, so that's why it has tone on it. But there are a couple of areas that are catching light. I am going to use a kneaded eraser to brighten. I've shaped it and I'm taking down some of the tone. And when you compare to the tone that I can erase with say, this eraser, this is a much softer touch and night and I, so there is always that you can use your eraser to draw as well, your drawing in the negative in that you're removing maybe some color or some tone that you've already applied to it. And you can really make some wonderful soft, subtle touches. And so that's what I'm doing. So going across form, like I just did there and then going along or parallel to form can create. And when I say form, I'm talking about the, the, the sense of shape, the mass of the volume that this flower takes up in space that is, that is formed. So this is slow to start, but boy, does it create some beautiful working like this is, you know, it takes time. Boy, do you get some beautiful visual effects from this? So that is one of the reasons why I love creating drawings like this, where I build up the layers and I have a tonal aspect of putting in like a solid hatch that then I'd been rubbed down and turn into a solid tone. And then I add texture and pattern and variety through the use of hatching. And what draws me to draw like this is it gives me an opportunity to really learn how to interpret objects in three-dimension and then translate them to onto a two-dimensional picture plane like a piece of paper. And I was actually thinking about it this morning when I was thinking about getting started on this drawing is like, why why do a drawing like this? And there's several reasons. One is it's easier to learn how to interpret and understand how to take a complex subject matter like a peony and turn it into an artistic expression. I find that drawing is just so much easier than painting is using graphite. Because maybe I spent hours and hours with a pencil in my hand as a kid. I find that working with graphite is just a natural extension of who I am. And then it, So therefore it makes it a little bit easier to look and interpret and explore. And with that, I want to fine tune my skill set, I guess, at interpreting the visual world. And this gives me an opportunity to do that. And it gives me an opportunity that's easy. I can start and stop this exercise write-off without having to clean my brushes or think about like my cat to climb into it and get, you know, get paint on them as a whole. Graphites a very innocuous medium two. And so it just, it really allows for a lot of versatility. So I'm slowly building up, squint my eyes. That helps me to distinguish different planes. I use a different direction of of hatching that I think also helps with. In the initial drawing. I might have missed or didn't add tone, like right here. In that tone. I'm going to add tone. Now. I want to have these red marks that are very dark and I get to decide, do I want to include them into my drawing? Or do I want to ignore that shift in value and just really focus on the white flower petals. And I'm thinking I'm just going to focus on the white flower petals. Yes. Yes. 13. Lesson 11: Hatching, Second Flower Part 2: Lot going on in there. There's some lighter tones, mid tones in there, but I'm going to use my to-be for that one, those and then we're going to continue catching light. A little bit of tone there, then that this petal needs to be erased out. Right here. I am so pleased with how this is turning out. So I got a little bit off on my drawing around here. The anatomy is just a wee bit off, but instead of erasing and redrawing, I'm going to adapt it. And the only people that will know that I got the anatomy off on this flower are you and me. But it's still going to be a beautiful drawing. So I don't mind that I'm also a little bit, my goal always with these drawings is to make sure that I'm really celebrating the beauty of the flowers that I'm drawing. That's a little bit hard build-up right there. And that's come from having two patches of Hatch come over and like by coincidence, land on top of each other very well. I want to smooth that out, but I don't rub it out. I actually redraw it by reestablishing my hatch. But instead of going up to it, I could barely to the edge. And the same goes, I want to transition this a little bit more, so I draw up to it but not over it there, and that kinda cleans it up. What I'm noticing is this area needs to be just a little bit darker. So I'm going to oops, I was using harder pressure, which is what I wanted, but I broke broke my tip. This needs to be just a little bit darker. There's wrinkles. I am pleased with how everything is going, but now I'm switching over. I'm going to switch over to my Tooby, which is my medium value, lead to B goes down lighter in value than the four B does. If I use the same pressure as I was using with the four B, which creates some nice variety using the two different LEDS. So this is done with four B, but it needs to go just a little bit darker. So I'm going to reinforce it with just another layer. This needs to be still a little bit darker. Turn your paper if you need to. So I made the decision, I want this petal to be stronger, so I'm adding a dark value around it to make that petal seems stronger than it, than it. So that way, it kinda just stands out a little bit more, which I have that, I have that ability in power to do that as a, as an artist, we get to choose how we want to emphasize things. If we want to, I'm choosing to emphasize my pedal that way. This is a little bit darker, so I'm going to put that darker in their capture. Some of my lights. Love drawing with, with these erasers. Are you draw negatively? Here we go. I'm going to add, that's looking so good. Put in the leaf, I want to work on the connection between the two flowers. So let's work on that. So first off, very dark. Here. It's a little bit different than what is in the photograph. Reference again, a little bit of I've shifted some things anatomically. Let it all works out. By establishing those lighter edges. It helps me make judgment. And now, granted, this is like almost black, so I'm putting in a back-and-forth hatch for the dark of this, of this leaf. I want to minimize my need to erase. So I'm actually going to use a crib or I'm going to use a sheet of paper. So I'm going to draw up to that edge with my hatch, guarantees that I don't go over where I don't want to go over, especially with that edge being so light, That's a little hack. You can use a little bit more pressure. I draw right up to what I had previously, where my hatchet previously ended. I have pretty good control, so I don't always need that paper edge, but when I do need it, I don't mind getting it out. The lighter part of the green leaf, but there's still, it's still significantly darker than any of the white. So with that in mind, even though like this area right here is catching light, still significantly darker, squint my eyes. It almost goes away. So doing a cross hatch, that leaf is in. Excellent. 14. Lesson 12: Hatching, Second Flower Part 3: Now I will go back to using a to-be, some hatching going on right there. I love this phase of the drawing. When I am just getting ready to finish up, I want to work through and refine some areas, get rid of some of my construction lines. I'll fund all of those lines. You can use it to soften things. You can draw with the two withdrawing. There's always some level of change and I'll train. And so I'm going to be aware of that as well. This panel comes here and then it catches light. I went a little bit of dither. I M reorganizing and finding my space all through here. And what that does is that helps me choose areas that need refinement and what needs to be left alone because we're at this or some of the shadowing is very subtle. It's darker in value right here. So I'm going to hatch Li, get some different hatch patterns, stuff going on anatomically. My flower is a little bit too small in this area. But that's okay. I will still make it work. And only you and I know that it's not exactly as our photo reference. And so keep that in mind, guys. When you're drawing flowers, I always strive to get to a certain level of accuracy, but it's not like doing a portrait of a person. Or if you're an eighth of an inch off, everybody and their uncle Bill know that you're off and drawing that knows or that i but with flowers, most people, they know what a flower looks like. They may not know exactly how this specific flower looks like, so we can adapt as needed. This one on this panel, I'm choosing to leave the tone as is. I'm not going to alternate match because the tone is the value of where it needs to be in. So I'm going to just let that go. We're going to work a little bit here on the tone of this guy. A little bit darker down in here. Sometimes the shift is very, very subtle and you don't want to go overboard. You know, like when we're dealing with a flower, like a peony flower like this, I always like to first break down my values into simple, really simple. So my dark is dark, my medium dark, medium light, and my lightest light. But then as I go through the refining process and I might have anywhere from 20 to 30 different value gradations. And they're always kinda dependent also on what's adjacent to them. And that helps with keeping interests and creating three-dimensional volume. Now this flower right here has reflected light along the back. So I'm not going to touch that. And it's got, it's catching light right here on its edge. So I want to erase out. Might be it looks like it's catching it right here too. And so behind it is a little bit darker. This is this part is lighter than what's going on right there. From here to here, it's darker. Then as it goes over here it gets lighter. So I'm going to Do that. And then this petal, it rolls. There's, there's reflected light right here. So I'm not gonna do anything but then there's like a bit of a form shadow because it's the petals curling. And just by the way, the direction of the light is, it's, the pedal is its most opaque. I'm going to first put in one cross hatch, and then I'm going to cross hatch again. And then I noticed that this area right here has more, a little bit darker, so I'm going to put that variety in. I've got some dark there. Let's see, this part of this petal is really dark, so I'm going to put that in. This is my favorite part of hatching actually is when you're dealing with all these little tiny nuances. It's when you can get most expressive and playful with your hatching. I'm using very light touches on all of this to let means to be extra clean. And then there's these little, a little guys. And notice that I have to be lighter anyway, so I might as well erase that too. I'm entering the last phase of the drawing where I have this petal, this petal, and like to fine tune this petal and then this drawing will be done. And so I'm going to quickly look at a couple of things. Might choose to abbreviate a few areas. Put in a couple of marks. Okay, I have a scenario on this flower petal right here, where this area has darker in value than the adjacent areas. So I'm going to, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to work on putting in a little bit of my shadow shape. I hatching it in my drawing or at my photo reference. This edge is catching light, but then there is touching a little bit of the light there. This edge of this pedals catching light. This edge is very bright right here. But there's just a little bit of something going on in here. And then I'm finalizing right here. We've got a cast shadow. And then we have a bit of form shifting. I'm going to put some form, some hatches that will deepen that value, that area just a little bit. Okay, so that is the end of the drawing. 15. Lesson 13: Finishing the Drawing: I am so pleased with how this painting has turned out. I would say that it is complete. When I finish a drawing, I always take a few moments and sit at it and look at it and like, first of all, decide whether or not there needs to be anything that needs to unify the piece because I drew these two flowers independently, I then make a decision. Is there anything that needs to be adapted and to create some more visual unity between the two as a whole, I think I did a really good job of unifying the two pieces. I do see a couple of areas that I do want to refine, but as a whole, I'm loving how this piece came together. So the only thing that I'm noticing is there's a little bit of disunity between the darkest dark of this flower with the darkest dark of this, of this flower. I want it, and it happens to be this petal right here. I want to create a little bit more unity with that, and I will do that shortly. But also, every time I work on a piece of work, I make a point at the end of it to identify the three things that I learned from the experience. This helps me stay away from being so outcome focused, but instead to focus on my process. So I'm going to first what I'm going to darken that. But while I'm darkening, I'm going to talk about what I learned from this experience every time I draw, I learned something new and I value that experience. And so one of the things that I learned, because I have not drawn a complex peony flower drawing like this before, is that I learned that it takes longer than I anticipated. That the slowness of me coming at it makes for a really wonderful experience. So that's one of them. And so I learned that the next time I come, I learned that the next time I work on a peony drawing, I will give myself more time to complete it. So that way I don't feel rushed, but also so that I will enjoy the process a little bit more. Okay, so that is better. See I'm squinting my eyes. Okay. I also need to work in that area. And then I had one area, that one spot that I also noticed on this flower that I need to, I want it to roll more. And it's, it's this transition right here. Yes, it is light, but there's just a little bit of variation and rolling. So I'm going to just put just a slight hatch to make it roll just a little bit better. Yeah, there we go. Okay. So that is the the peony drawing completed. Again, three things you learned from it. Plan more time. Make sure I really connect with the process while I'm drawing it, connecting them with the process and enjoying every hatch stroke. And just that. I absolutely love how this piece worked out. So thank you so much for joining this lesson, and I cannot wait to see your drawings. 16. Peony Drawing Thank you: I want to thank you so much for being a part of this class and working on your own peony drawing. This is mine and I am so I'm so honored to have worked with you in this class and showing you my process of how I take a pretty complex flower peony. And step-by-step, I turn it into something that is to meet evocative and emotional in my appreciation of these beautiful flowers. And I hope you too have enjoyed and thoroughly learned a lot from this class. I look forward to hearing from you and please share your results. Share them with me. I would love to see them. Thank you so much. 17. REVISED LESSON 01 Big Shape Block in: I am getting ready to start my block. And as I had showed you the, how I'm thinking about the big shapes. I'm going to start my block in with drawing in those big shapes with the 0.3 mechanical pencil and using this lead. And I went to orientate my drawing so that the flowers take up the center. I don't want it to be too close to one edge or the other. I'm using an 11 by 14 sheet of paper of Bristol. Bristol board paper, smooth finish. And I have my board slightly on an angle so that way it all works out. Let's get that going. Okay. So I want the flower to be between here and here. Which means that the peony is tip of the leaf goes from here, an edge of pedal to there. And then I go, Okay, So that helps me out. Then I know that my panel. Okay. So I'm thinking about my big shapes. I am placing on my drawing, on my paper. And I am my node is about right there. So that means, okay. Okay, there we go. Then I've got yes, here we go. So when I'm measuring and when I'm starting to drawing and thinking about my big shapes, I am constantly thinking about those big shapes and how they interact with each other. And the nice thing about doing a drawing and blocking it in with a very light pencil is that first of all, you first get a, you get a very nice sensitive touch with a lot of the wiggle of what we, as we have with as we're, we're touching. And I don't want my drawing to be too mechanical. I want it to have a little bit of what I noticed too. I just drew my leaf and a little bit too low. But that's where I want it to end. So now I know I need to bring it up and bring it to there. So another reason why you draw very lightly is so that way you don't damage your paper surface because if you draw too hard, you're at risk of dentine your paper. And when you do that, then when you start to add tone and another bit right there. Okay, so when you start to add tone, it will, it will get, it will be negative. So you'll get a white spot on it so you don't want that. So that's my there, that's my inner node. I've got a cast shadow there. So sometimes when I'm measuring something difficult, I'm not using the outside items to measure, but I'm using items that are the shapes like cast shadows, form shadows to to help me place things. And I also mean, that's too. There we go. Okay, I think this is a good start for the first flower, and now I'm going to block in the next flower. One of the things that I'm gonna do is I'm going to start working on adjacency. So I want to, I want to make sure that I've accounted for the way the flower interacts with. Okay, right there. Okay. And then and then we have part of the flower is, this is a petal. And then we have another shape that interacts right there. It might be a little bit lower hip. I'm always measuring and if I make a mistake, which happens all the time, I adjust. And one of the things about art, art is a constant push and pull of things coming together, things not coming together and then adjusting and adapting. There we go. Now, I'm pleased with my measurements. Okay, and then so I am still just have it working at it drawing. See that comes down. And then there's, and you'll notice that most of my curves are not, are not curved lines, but instead, I sneak up to all my curves using using straight lines and that enables me to have that okey. So that's lower than this leaf is lower because I have an an overlap right there. Okay. Okay. I am just trucking along. C. Do you think that's a little bit higher? So the node is just a little bit higher up and then the petals. And then I have, once I get to a certain stage here, I do not have much graphite on my paper right now. So you'll notice that I'm just kind of going all over. But the next phase, I'm actually going to get a sheet of paper that will protect the paper from my hands because there are oils in our, in our hands that will affect the surface of the paper. And I do not want the oils from my hands to get to get on. So I'm sure they're okay right there. That's pretty much Let's block in right now. That is, that's my block and then there's more I can refine. But that is where I want to be on this drawing. At this point. It's very, very soft using a mechanical pencil. So that way my lines are very, very small and very delicate and minimal pressure. In fact, I should point out that when I'm drawing, especially when I want to draw lightly in softly, I always hold my pencil way back. That allows for me to have a really soft touch. And I don't have I'm not putting down as much pressure just because naturally you do not put as much pressure down. And then the nice thing about using 0.3 is that if I use a hard pressure that the LED will break. So here I'll demonstrate. It also forces me having to 0.3 forces me to keep my pressure soft, extra soft. And yeah, so that is my big shape block in right now. 18. REVISED LESSON 02 Refining the Line Drawing Part 1: Okay, so now we are entering the phase of refining the drawing. I will use a sheet of paper, just this is just printer paper as my hand guard. Part of this refinement is making my lines a little bit harder and identifying, fine-tuning my edges just a little bit in some of the stuff that I want to make sure that I catch with, with a little bit more intention because I realized all fine art is about is an iterative process and that you go through one phase and then you develop and you enhance the next phase. And you, you know, you start to see things that need to be altered and adapted and enhanced and refined. And it's just a matter of just enjoying the process. I really want to encourage you guys to think about just the joy and the beauty of the process. Our brain often likes to tell us that we have to go faster. And all of that. Use this opportunity as an opportunity to explore your ability to think and concentrate and admire in Meyer beauty that is a fundamental that we are all humans love is to admire beauty. And drawing is one of the best ways to get that time and space for us. So I am not going to draw every petal. That's the refinement that this is refining the block. And I just wanted to make sure that some of my asked some of my measurements are accurate. And if they're not, what, you know, where do I need to fix them? And there's little things that I want to emphasize than I do. I'm looking, I'm still focusing on big shapes. I'm not trying to get into the details too fast. You can, you can overload your brain really fast if you get too much into the details too fast. When working. At this phase of refining the block in, I am going around and looking. I'm breaking down the big shapes a little bit more with a little bit more accuracy. I still am allowing for things to go. But one of the things I am doing is I'm looking, I'm going to start putting in some of my, the shadow shapes too. That helps. I find always when I put in the shadow shapes, some of the cast and form shadows. I start to understand my painting, my drawing subject, so much more. So that is what this stage is about, is it's the, It's the phase where I am learning. What is, what are all the little details of my, of my drawing of my subject. And it just is getting me one more level of awareness and familiarity before I move on and start rendering the form, the female creating this, shifting this drawing from being a line drawing to a drawing that has a sense of three-dimensionality on my, on my paper, on the two-dimensional picture plane of the paper. I do go through and I correct, I erased some lines that I have previously had on that shape is more like that. Then of course, I know as the process of drawing continues on, I will have areas where I'll need to make some pretty big corrections. There's always that. And i'm, I'm never like totally set to how I'm drawing. I just I do try to aim for a certain level of accuracy just because it makes four, it makes for an overall easier experience. So I'm, I'm drawing, I'm looking at all of the shapes. So now, like I pointed out how there's this note that the deep node, the deep node right here. And that's like the deepest part of the flower. So I always, I always pay attention to that. I always pay attention to the deep part of the flower. It helps me find where I am. And in fact, I should have just noticed I made that too high. This bit is down here. Interesting how sometimes I thought I was making a correction and then I go back and remeasure with my eyes the shapes, and then I realize I'm not. Oh, let me point out. So far I've only used a kneaded eraser, but now I've switched up, I'm switching over to I have, this is a mono Zero eraser. And here's a mono eraser and there you can see what it is. It's a very small, like nib eraser, Mono Zero. Right now I'm using a kneaded eraser and my mono eraser in C, so it's right there. So it is a little bit lower than this this petal right here. So that's why there we go. Stuff going on in there, but I don't really have to worry about that. Then I've got this is how I knew I had placed at pedal and correctly because I have this little tiny petal in there. And then this petal starts here, but it goes, it goes down pretty low. And then it loops and then we have another there. Okay. I still working a lot with my three my three millimeter. So I'm using straight lines to make curves. I'm thinking about my shapes and the like. I'm always thinking about the angle. So if I have that angle in relation to become another angle, another edge that helps me shadow shapes. And then it goes like that triangle there. Then I've got a diagonal right there. And then it comes, comes from Pair. From that diagonal, There's another diagonal of some petals and kind of shape and they go to their job actually that means that's a bit bigger. Then this line right here, There's a diagonal of a pedal that curves and has two shapes like that. And then it continues going up. But I just noticed that I'm my drawings off right there. So I'm going to restart. I got too in the weeds. So it's more like there. There we go. Then that diagonal. There we go. Sometimes I got to start all over. Every zone. Okay. Starting over, but not bad. They're kind of coincidence. There we go. There's some stuff going on in there. Okay, so let's move on to this more complex area. I'm going to line that comes down. And then on the other side, if I bring a plumb line down, right there is another petals that starts. Points are really pretty petal. I want to make sure I'm capturing it to its best. Comes up, and then it comes down, it's broken into three pieces. Visually, just a beautiful petal. And it comes up and then okay, and to make sure that I'm measuring and seeing things right, I'm going to put in a little bit of shadow that I see. And that will help me measure. There we go. There's always a lot going on in a peony. And so one of the goals as a, as we're drawing peonies is to simplify the shapes and forms. So that way they work together. Okay, there we go. That goes inside here, right? Right, right there. Okay. Might need to be a little bit bigger. We'll see as I move down here. Then there's a line. Then the line right here. It's right there. So that's one of the reasons also why we why you do this phase of you've got your block in and then I find that it's always helpful to do this refining block. And because the initial block in is to look at the big shapes and to get the gesture of the flower drawing down. And I oh, I see. All right. Okay. Right. Comes up more. Shadow shape. Shadow shape. Let me have a long piece and another long piece. If you notice, I'm still pretty wiggly. The wiggle is that gesture. I think. Some of the most beautiful painting drawings out there are the ones that have a little bit of wiggle in them. When I was in architecture school, we called it the dither. And I have to agree that I think a drawing that has some dither in it creates a very evocative and emotive drawing and has artist, I think the most important thing we do as artist is create emotional connection between, with other people. We, we find in our visual world. Those elements that everybody can appreciate and communicate to and needs to be more like right there. So with that in mind, I'm always looking for a little bit of dither in my, in my drawing. And Here we go. Oh my God. So good, so amazing. So beautiful. All of that and more. Then there we go. Here we go. A little bit of variation and crinkle. Those two right there. I am going to get rid of some of these construction lines. So construction lines hold lots of purposes. They help us identify. Right here. That's a cast shadow from the center area. I also use construction lines sometimes when I'm dropping a plumb line or when I'm filling out an edge, that's what this one is. C. And we need to make it a little bit bigger or just adjust it a little bit. So it needs to be this flower petal comes out. Then there's a little bit tighter, I guess that's it. There's more going on than I initially realized. There we go. Then there's an overlap right here. Then we have we have that right there. And then this one, there's actually another petal that comes out. It's this theory. There's some shadow shape. Okay, so I've got those two and those two setup. Now, it's time to work on this flower. 19. REVISED LESSON 03 Refining the Line Drawing Part 2: It's time to work on this flower. So I'm going to move up. And I always like at this stage, I'm always using a piece of paper to, in one of the things that I'm going to check real quick is I'm going to check that my plumb lines are lining up correctly. And what I'm noticing is that that's the edge. So that means this flower. I actually, the leaf might be at the right. This, the edge of this petal is not in the right location. It's actually more like right there. And the end of this leaf comes, Oh, it actually comes down. It's actually a bigger, it's like right there. So that tells me that I have to restructure the upper flower, so not a ton. But i'll, I'll, I'll drawings require that in and out. And I really want to encourage you guys to, to give yourself grace when you started drawing. If you feel that i 0, i exaggerated that or oh, that needs to be a little bit bigger or oh, that needs to be lifted up. There is absolutely. It's a okay. So but what I'm gonna do is I'm actually going to I do know I need to work there and adjust, but I am going to first realized that I have a little bit tighter tangent also I'm going to get I'm going to work I'm going to work centrally and move out. Yeah. Then I've got, Okay, so when I'm thinking about my diagonals are my angles, I'd like to think about like this pedal comes here and that pedal comes down and then there is some, some stuff going on. But then this panel continues over. And that looks about right. And then it comes into the center. And then there's this cast shadow right here of this petal onto that pedal. Then there's cast shadow from this flower petal into the center rather than the node of this flower is that together and it looks like my angles incorrect, it's more upright. So I'm going to capture that and fix that. Yes, there we go. And then that helps me because there's actually that there's a form there. And then this comes off. And that form looks accurate too. So then there's our petal right there, Mayor. And then here's the belief. And then have some stuff going on there. And then this flower petal comes out down. Then it's got an edge. And then there's some of this wonderful cream cleanness of the edge of that Howard pedal. There we go. So that is that part. Now I'm going to move over here and let's look at it in relationship. Let's look at the two everything together. But now as I move over, I do not want my hand rubbing on all that, all that graphite. So I move my paper with me and it's okay at all, and all works out. There's a whole bunch of like little wiggly things in there. And then there's this petal right here that comes comes up and over. It's part of that diagonal. And it comes down and it's about right there. Two angles, so it's slight curve but i'm, I'm finding that by two angles instead. Then it goes. Yep, that's right. Okay, I'm going. There we go. Sorry. I've got a whole bunch of lines there, so I've got to get rid of some stuff. Okay. When there is leftovers of eraser, I get rid of it. I do not use my hand to get rid of the eraser gunk, I use a Kleenex. Often. The plumb line is more closer that there. So that gives me more room to create. It's an important triangle. And it rolls up an apex. That triangle, the curve at apex goes there. There. There's lots of shadow shapes going on here. So I'm going to put a couple of lines of identifying these different shapes. And there's like a fold right there. There's stuff going on. Okay? Then in relationship to this petal, this triangular petal has some commonality to, so I want to join that commonality. And then we've got a petal that comes out more triangular shape, more dark. Then this guy right here catches light in a very beautiful way. There's a lot going on there. And then we've got this petal right here is a kind of a continuation of this shape. Here we go, trying angles and then very pretty. So one of the reasons why I love painting, flowers and drawing is just nature has so much variety in it. And I think through drawing, our drawing nature, you can create such an appreciation for, for, for, you know, just life in general. So again, that connection that we want. And there's another, okay. There we go. There's a shadow shape, their shadow shape there. And then it comes down, comes up over, and then we've got there we go. So there is, then there's a little tiny triangle right here of a leaf. I haven't decided if I'm keeping that or not. Okay. So this is where this is the end, the completion of the refining. The, the block in. The next step is adding tone. Okay, So this is the end of refining block in almost the whole drawing is kinda put together. Now, there's a couple of things that need to be like probably refund even more. But for now, it's an excellent spot. And so the steps we've taken so far is big shape block in and then refining the block in. The next step is adding tone. It looks beautiful and I am so excited to start the next phase. 20. REVISED LESSON 03a Peony Why Use a Mechanical Pencil: And I'm going to continue to use my 0.3 millimeter consult. And the reason why is because it will give me in the long run to the best and most consistent even tone. And that point stays super sharp for the whole duration of the drawing. Where if I was using a regular pencil, this is a B. And so it's a pretty sharp tip right there. But as it, as I use it to create tone, it loses some of its refinement. And so then therefore it doesn't, it doesn't add an even amount of tone. It doesn't get into the grooves of my papers. So here let me show you an example. That's actually pretty nice, right? But as my pencil gets dollar and not as pointy the grain, it won't fit into the grain of the paper as much as I would like it. So see how, see here how the grain is starting to show it. And that's because my pencil is getting dollar. I'm gonna go I can go over it. Where if I have a 0.3 pencil, because my tip stays the same diameter the whole way. I have. I have a greater precision of adding an even tone. I'm trying to go parallel, make my lines as parallel as possible. So this is in real time. So that way you can see it because when we, for the first layer of adding tone, we've been, I use Kleenex to you get a better, more even tone with the mechanical pencil. Of course, you can continue to use just a regular old pencil if you want to. Just make sure you're always sharpening it probably every, you know, every, definitely for every about that much. So mechanical pencils just become more easy. 21. REVISED LESSON 04 Adding Tone Part 1: For this lesson, we are going to start adding 3-dimension to this line drawing by adding tone value shapes. And I'm going to continue to use my points three millimeter consult. And the reason why is because it will give me, in the long run the best and most consistent even tone. And the reason why is because that point stays super sharp for the whole duration of the drawing. Where if I was using a regular pencil, this is a B pencil. And it's a pretty sharp tip right there. But as it, as I use it to create tone, it loses some of its refinement. And so then therefore it doesn't, it doesn't add an even amount of tone. It doesn't get into the grooves of my papers. So here let me show you an example. That's actually pretty nice, right? But as my pencil gets dollar and not as pointy, the, the grain, it won't fit into the grain of the paper as much as I would like it. So see here how the grain is starting to show it. And that's because my pencil is getting dollar. And I'm gonna go, I can go over it. Upsets where if I have a 0.3 pencil, because my tip stays the same diameter the whole way. I have. I have a greater precision of adding an even tone. I'm trying to go parallel, make my lines as parallel as possible. So this is in real time. So that way you can see because when we, for the first layer of adding tone, we've been, I use Kleenex two. You get a better, more even tone with the mechanical pencil. Of course, you can continue to use just a regular old pencil if you want to. Just make sure you're always sharpening it probably every, you know, every, definitely for every, about that much. So mechanical pencils just become more easy. I'm going to start here. Okay, So I'm putting basic tone down, but what I wanted to talk about is when I squint my eyes, even though, in comparison, this flower petal is significantly lighter than what's going on back there. This one, if I compare, I squint my eyes and look at this flower petal in relationship to what's going on over, say over here. It's dark, it's overall like a middle gray. So that tells me that I still need to add a tone to it similar to this one, I added a slight tone because even though it is darker than its adjacent areas, it is still darker than what's going on on the, say, the light side of my flowers. So with that in mind, I also need to know this, this portion of the flower petal. I've gone over it in a couple of directions. And then I went over it again this direction as I was carrying forward, carrying on. And so I'm going to essentially cross hatch because my direction of my, of the tone that I've applied is this direction. And then to make sure that I can get into my grooves, i'm, I'm gonna create tone, but I'm going to apply my pencil going cross across. And so that's what I'm gonna do. And I'm going to add, I'm always going to be paying attention to see like yes, adjacent. These might be this might be darker and this might be significantly lighter. But then I need to look at what is the value of this petal in relationship to the whole context of the flower. And if I squint my eyes and realize it's still falls into my, say, my dark side, my shadow side of the flower. That means I know I need to add some tone to it and that's what I'm gonna do right now. I have a cast shadow right there. And this is catching light. And then there's shade here. Then there's like there's some really darkness going on in here, but there's a couple of light strands, so I gotta be careful. I want to make sure that I'm capturing what needs to be captured. And I'm going to refine my edge. There we go. And it's dark right there. So I'm going to really dark right here. There's a little bit of a triangle shapes. I'm going to put that triangle and if you notice, I'm choking up on my pencil. And it gives me, I can put a little bit more pressure. Make sure to watch the lesson where I go over the three different pencils, graphite, say use, and the different hatching and how I hold the pencil. So that way you understand why I sometimes joke up on a pencil and sometimes why I don't. The quick answer is you can apply more pressure when you choke up on the point. And as you push pull back, you you have, it's lighter. It's a lighter touch. Okay, so I'm gonna quickly add some tone on these elements over here. It's a little bit darker, so I'm going to cross hatch my tone application. So this is soft, really soft. So I'm holding my pencil at the very, very end. The very, very end as I'm drawing this. I said, there's a little bit of some cast shadow right here. I'm gonna get some of that going. Again. Really, really soft tone. See what's going on. Holding onto my pencil away at the very edge. Soft. So very, very soft application. You'll notice too that my tip of my 0.3 is pretty far out. So I have to be very careful about not applying to harder pressure too, because I can break that 0.3 mechanical pencil lead right off really quickly. A little bit of shadow here, a cast shadow. It's not as dark as what's going on over there. Okay. So I'm doing pretty good. I'm pleased. Just want I'm doing nice. Couple of areas that need to be tone, needs to be refined. So I'm going to do that. We need to get my cast shadow in the center. The flower. Then there's another dark. So I'm choking backup and getting that value in there. Right here. Some dark value right there. Here's the cast shadow of that pedal onto this petal. This flower petal is short for short and income and towards us and it's catching night differently. So I want to make sure I'm capturing that. There's a little bit of tone, minimal, minimal tune on this flower petals. So I'm going to add just a smidge. Again, holding my pencil really far back. Tone ends off, then there's tone in here, so I'm going to have that. Okay? So that is adding tone to the first flower. And now I want to unify my tone so I get a Kleenex and I start to make sure I get rid of all of the any bit of hatching or line working. Now, that guy gets a little bit of dirty, like paper towel for right there. Now, he's gonna get erased out because that petal right there is very light. So, you know, drawing is always a bit of a push and a pull. Guys, there's always something that might need to get a little bit of tone, like right here should be some time right there. I'm going to put some tone. Right there. Here we go. Okay, so that is the first flower. Oh, I just realized I didn't add tone to the, to the leaf. So let me do that real quick. I actually wanna get, wanted to draw in that summit a bit of the veins of the leaf. The veins will help me because this is a big a big leaf. So I can actually use the veins and to help me segment off when I'm adding tone. There we go. Okay, there. Okay. So let me unify that. 22. REVISED LESSON 05 Adding Tone Part 2: Okay, Now it's time to start with adding tone to this peony. And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to start actually left to right. And that will be to reduce any smearing of graphite. I will be using my sheet of paper to as a hand rest. So that way the oils from my hands will not be getting on the surface. And eventually I will then unify the tone with the Kleenex. So let's get started. And one thing also I want to encourage is that you always squint your eyes at your reference Viet photograph or working from life. And with that, what that does is that allows me to create some, I think about the simplified shapes again, so I'm squinting my eyes and I've already like slightly don't drawn in with very soft touches the, this cast shadow right here. But I have not done so on here. And when I squint my eyes, that that shape comes out pretty strong. So that means that I want to actually get that in because that will help me speed up my drawing process. And there's areas here that are catching light, that are lighter, and then there's areas that are like a middle value. And also when you squint your eyes, you can break things down into your lightest and darkest. So right now I see like a like a lightest light, like a medium light and then a medium dark and then dark. So that's for value shifts, for value areas that I'm going to, I'm going to simplify and put my tones in that way. Initially. I also am holding my pencil again, so far back, so it's a soft touch, so I'm not grooving my paper. This is about as the longest I ever do with when I'm putting tone. I don't like really going more than that. I seemed I start to lose control. Now this part of the tone needs to be darker. So I'm gonna go back over it. Then I'm going to go over it as a cross hatch or across the direction than I originally went. Because I've gone over it a couple of different directions. And sometimes I'll even like shift, switch my paper around to help with my with the crosshatching. This is a very comfortable hatch direction for me. So I'll just switch my paper around. Now if I squint. This white petal is still a little like over here. Is that slightest? But there's still just there is still just a little bit of gray tone on here. And so what I'm gonna do is I am going to add a very lighter and lighter tone. There we go. When I look at again, if I, you know, like like there and then we've got some stuff going on here. There's catching light. But my, you know, there's the form of the form shadow is like right there. This is, this flower petal right here is catching light, but it's darker in this flower petal is also catching light, but then that is catching light. But this over here is darker in value. It's not as dark as what's going on there, but it's still I would I would identify it as my medium dark values. So I'm going to versus like a medium light and the medium lights tend to be over here. So let's get started. I'm going to make it easier for my hand to to hatch. Strive to make this as parallel as possible. Your hatched lines. I often just doodle by creating straight lines are parallel lines. The more parallel they get. I think it creates some really wonderful notes. So that's my line. And then that's a little bit, That's like a medium. Then it starts to get a little bit darker stuff going on here. Okay, So this flower petal is catching light. There's a little bit of light dark shadow shapes here. So I'm going to put this tones in medium dark with a couple of like dark, darks. And then just some cast shadows. So here we go. Back here. Darker. So that's medium dark, but then we actually have some dark, dark. So I'm going to put a little bit more pressure. So I'm a little bit more choked up the pressure that I'm applying. I'm just, I'm just making my way through. Here we go. So this is I squint medium dark, even though like compared to that, it's darker. But compared to this, it's lighter. There's squint my eyes. There's some variety here. And these petals right here. But they are lighter than the dark here, but darker than the light, the adjacent light. So I squint and like make it an assessment and then actually through here, very dark. And then same goes for here. Crosshatching. Here we go, That's darker. And like we've got some stuff going on here. It's a little bit lighter and then it's darker. And these are light really kitchen lights. I'm just going to This is like my squint my eyes. It looks like it's my light, my medium light. So I'm going to first put that tone in because that will help me measure what I need to do. Again, throughout this whole drawing, I'm keeping my hand on the paper, on my this is my medium dark. Let me pull out my lead more. A little bit lighter. They're not much. So I'm going to actually still keep the pressure. You see how I patch, quilted this big shape with different hatches. Then I can reinforce and create a little bit more unity. Still need a cross hatch there. So I'm gonna do that. Here we go. Okay, so that's the first bit. And let's get further in. Here. It's darker. So I want to get that dark shape in. And there are times when I'm just going to give a whole, the whole area tone, I'm going to create some unity. Same goes for over here. That's really dark right there. So I'm going to put that in cache shadow. See, I squint my eyes this whole area here. Lighter than what's going on here. But it's darker than these adjacent. So I'm going to actually create just a basic tone. Knowing that I'll have to, I'll refine that in the next and the refining layer. There's a little bit of something going on there. Okay. So when I squint, squint. Okay. There's more details there, but I'm going to actually just leave that. I'm going to add a tone here to create some shape. Through here. Cast shadows. Right here that's lighter. Okay, So I've got to darken some areas there. And there's a couple of things over here. Not a ton. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to allow this to be considered my lights, so I'm not gonna do much shadow shape there. I do need to create, put in the leaf form. And it's really dark. A little bit of shade here. Have hatched there. Not a ton. That's very light. Little bit of tone. See this guy still need to tone. So I'm gonna put down there a little bit here, not much, but it's very dark. And here, a little bit of shade here, about a tone right here. So that is the first application of tone. And I'm pretty pleased with it. So I'm gonna go about right now. You got to want to unify this. So then right here, there's some halftones, but I can just look, I can just use my dirty paper towel to get me some of those very light tones like this flattening pedal will have to be erased out. There's no getting around that, but that's and then I'll have to erase around like so e.g. I. Can erase either that way or I can erase with one of my fancy pencil erasers. I've got two. Well, this is my favorite eraser, but I've got this one also that works for erasing up large swaths. And it's got a chisel edge so I can actually use it. I can actually draw with it. I'm going to continue finding, unifying my tone and see how you can use a stump for this process to I just find a Kleenex is I always have a Kleenex available. I don't always have my stump available. So even though I use some specialty items, I also like just having the easy items around too. And one of the reasons why I do this unifying phase is because it creates a good solid, like, it's like an underpainting, but it's an under drawing. And it just kind of immediately kinda creates a sense of very quickly. It creates some nice unity. There we go. So there's the both flowers together. But then like the, there we go. And before I go on to the next phase, I will spend a little bit of time erasing out my paper towel from my hand. Okay. Let's look at other spots. Okay. I need to actually unify some of my hatching right here. Okay? So a few more things I wanna do before I call this space complete, and that is I want to clean up around the leaf. There we go. But overall, I like this very much. So that is where we are right now. And I'm going to the next phase. It's probably needs to be cleaned out. To. The next phase is re-find the refining layers. And that is what I'm gonna do next. 23. REVISED LESSON 06 Hatching First Flower Part 1: Okay, so now we are on the next stage of the drawing to get it more refined. And I'm going to be using my LED holders. So I have a lead holder that specifically it's even labeled for B, which is my darkest soft, the sled. I use these sleds. And then Tooby, which is my middle value, lead and I use these floods and here is my, what the lead holder looks like. And when sharpening, It's got graphite dust. So I clean it off. And then That's my point. Isn't that a beautiful point? I'm going to get started and I'm going to start with the upper flower when I'm going to start with my OB today. And what I wanna do right off the bat is I want to get my darkest darks in. So I have I've already drawn them in dark with the HB pencil, but now I want to get them in. With regard to my dark is like some of my darkest darks. And the four beat just a darker lead. Softer. And with that softness comes more graphite comes off the but I've already broken and worn off my tip. With this portion of the drawing, I use hatch marks to create my visual interests. Granted, sometimes my hatch marks are so dense that it's almost like as if I'm adding tone, but in fact, I am, I am adding little tiny, precise hatch marks to create visual interest and texture. I'm reinforcing lines. And again, I want some squiggle. I don't want everything to be too mechanical. I'm going to start here. Soon as I start to lose some of my point, I do want to go back and we sharpen. Sharpen often. I first go in with parallel lines. When it needs to be reinforced. I crosshatch. Pressure also affects. Parallel lines are helpful and important. So that is like one pedal. An area in darker and I squint my eyes, it's dark, is right there. So I want to make sure I emphasize, I also want to make sure that the edge of the white area of the flower really light. I want to make sure that that is as light as it can, as light as it needs to be. It's kind of dark here, so I'm going to darken that just a bit. It's very dark here. So my hatch marks are tighter and I'm crossing. I also use the direction of my hatching as a means of defining the different planes in the form. So by by playing with direction of Hatch, I can also create a sense of form. And Mike, what's What's going on? Where? So I'm going to actually there's some weaves like that. Yeah. Then a bit darker right there. So I know I need to go. Then. Like I think there's just a little bit it won't hurt to put in a little bit of cross hatching to emphasize that shift. This is darker, so I'm going to squint my eyes. Yeah, that's falling together. Like I want it to. So now I'm going to switch like work over here. Like that's my darker line, darkest line. Then some stuff, kitchen light. I do not want a constant, same quality of line everywhere. So, and pretty soon I'm going to work here with my four B. But then I think the rest of my patches for this, except for the leaf, will be in to be. But I'm going to continue working just real quick. I'm not going to be using Kleenex to smear and rub going forward. This is, this is hatching like only. So even with using a for B, I can adapt my pressure and create different quality of strokes. So like right now I'm working with a very light touch. I'm also the way my ain't my wrist is. I don't get as good of I don't have as much control. So there's a little bit more like it's, my lines are not as parallel as they are. When I'm holding a pencil like this. I've got this beautiful petal right here. I really love the feeling of that pedal. And that is going to be to be not my fault that I'm working on. So I got to restrain. My pencil tip is starting to lose his point. Okay? So that is with a. For B, I'm switching to my tube for the time being. Going forward. So going forward, oh, I see. There's a couple of construction spots that I need to get rid of using a kneaded eraser, shaping it. There we go. So it's a push and pull between between your lights and darks too. And you're constantly refining. Really need to work on this area. I'm getting distracted with that area, but it's this area that is primaries. There. Some nice shadow shapes. There's a bit of a core shadow right here. This is a form shadow right on this petal right here. And then we've got some reflected light in here. And it goes deeper. And then this, this edge of the petal is catching. So I want to make sure I capture all of that. So what that means is actually the core shadow is a little bit more like right there. That's my core shadow, but then I have a little bit of form shadows. So I want to make sure that I created a like a light hatch that has space between it. And then I'm gonna do the same light hatch over here. Look at the difference. This area did not have the tone put down. And look at how the tone adds automatically when you hatch on top of it, you get a little bit more. A deepening of visual effect. Like almost I should probably have tone here. So what I'm going to, I'm not going to draw in my I'm going to actually just very closely add a little bit of tone. You can do that too. At times when you are in the tone phase, you didn't apply tone in the spot, but then you notice that you actually need it later on. You can do it. However you will have to you want to unify that tone. So that means I have to go in with my paper towel and I'll have to rehash everything. But that's okay. That actually makes for a stronger drawing. And I'll always choose the stronger drawing over, Over the avoidance of doing a certain, a certain aspect of the drawing. So I'm a believer in that. Never hurts. I'm gonna cross hatch that form shadow, core, shadow of that petal. And then there's like another petal here. Love hatching parallel to. Here we go. 24. REVISED LESSON 07 Hatching First Flower Part 2: Here we go. Okay. And then there's this spot right there, and then I've got darker. And then it's got a pedal that actually catches light. Then it's darker there. So grab that. I know I'll have to erase some of that. Let's see what's going on. So pretty always, always guys. Reinforce yourself. If, if you like how something's going, give yourself a nice quick kudos of like, I'm always aiming for beauty. So I make sure I point that out when something's going well and how lovely it is and how much I admire it. I love these details too. Okay. Yes, there we go. That looks really nice. Look at that. Okay. I'm almost done with this flower. Still staying with the to-be right now. I'm going to work on creating some outlines and some wonderful wiggles. Then I will hatch the leaf in. Loving this cast shadows. Now one thing is, like I just noticed, I laid in a couple of varies, a bit too dark though, when that happens, you can actually use your kneaded eraser tool to take it out some. So I'm going to actually soften just a little bit and my light that light area. Okay, I also my point is getting too big, so I need to sharpen it. There we go. We've got a pedal back here. Let's get that petal. Just have this petal, petal, this petal and this leaf. And now I'm gonna go back to my OB. Now. This is my darkest. I'm going to put in Solid Leaf. My goal is to deepen the value of it. There was my point. Okay, so I need to erase because that is white along that edge. Same goes for right here, right there. Now I'm crosshatching. I'm gonna go back to, to be, to work on this petal and this connection pedal. And then we'll go to four B again for the leaf. And then I'll work on this guy. First. Let's get this pedal done. And again, my edges, I'm trying to, I want my, my line quality to be varied. And I don't mind a little bit of wiggle, If anything, I like it because it adds for that natural sense of nature, things are not machined. So there is a, there's always a bit of variety. Then I've got just very subtle bits that I want to put in for some interests on this big shape of power are some darkness there. But then right here, okay, I went to do it this way. Then this flower petal, There's a little bit of foreshortening. I'm actually going to cut that out. Here's a tip of a leaf there, but I'm gonna get rid of that. And what I'm gonna do is identify the foreshortened area, that there's a little bit of edge quality shift in value. Stuff going on here. There we go. A little bit of cast shadow right here. I'm going to put that cast shadow in right there. Hairy cow. And then I'm going to take an eraser and erase the parts where there needs to be, needs to be the lightest. There we go. And also I'm going to actually take and cut through some of my hatching. Now. There is the first peony, and we'll move on to the next one, the next lesson. 25. REVISED LESSON 08 Hatching Second Flower Part 1 : Now we are going to work on the second PMI, which is a larger and more complex. And again, I will be using my Tooby and for B leds. And just like with the first flower, see right here, I will be using hatch marks to on top of the tone shapes to give this flower some dynamic field to it. I'm going to start with my four B, and I'm going to start in this area, which is my darkest area. And then my second darkest areas are down here. And then I have like a secondary there. And then there's some pretty interesting stuff going through here. And then everything that's going on in the light areas will be a combination of erasing out and putting in light hatch marks. Let's start over here. I need to reinforce a couple of lines. So I am reinforcing the drawings. Since when I added tone and unified everything, I lost some of the structure of the design. And like the anatomy of this flower. So right now I'm going through and kind of re-establishing the line drawing. I'm doing that with this drawing in particular because there is so much complexity going on, we'd be left with the first peony. It wasn't as necessary. But with this one, I feel that I need to reorganize everything. Again. There's no harm. And then there's no harm ever in redrawing something in truth. That is what I have come to think. Art is. It's always a push and pull. Art is always a push and pull of, of art is always a push and pull of where you draw, maybe smudge down, and then you go back and you re-establish it. And that's kinda what that's where I'm at right now with this drawing is I'm re-establishing aspects of this flower to make sure that everything is working out the way I want it to ultimately. And I'm going to erase some edges. This flower tip is catching light, so I want to make sure I get that in there. That's some they're catching light. Same goes for here. I'm going to capture this little knot is catching light. So I'm going to do that. There's a node right here that's kitchen light, IOL. You race out of it. And then the edge right here. So the edge of this flower is catching light. And so I'm going to actually reach shape and inches on my, my edge so I can capture that edge, draw with that edge. Yeah, there we go. Here we go. When I squint my eyes, this flower petal is light in relationship to how it looks like in the background. However, when I squint my eyes to it and compare it to the other, like lightness to these flower petals or that flower petal there. It is still significantly dark, so that's why it has tone on it. But there are a couple of areas that are catching light. I am going to use a kneaded eraser to brighten. I've shaped it. And I'm taking down some of the tone. And when you compare it to the tone that I can erase with say, this eraser. This is a much softer touch that you can use your eraser to draw as well, your drawing in the negative in that you're removing maybe some color or some tone that you've already applied to it. You can really make some wonderful soft, subtle touches. And so that's what I'm doing. And I'm going to move on. So going across form, like I just did there. And then going along or parallel to form can create. When I say form, I'm talking about the, the sense of shape, the mass of the volume that this flower takes up in space. That is, that is form. Working like this is, you know, it takes time. Boy, do you get some beautiful visual effects from this? So that is one of the reasons why I love creating drawings like this, where I build up the layers. And I have, I have the tone, the tonal aspect of putting in like a solid hatch that then I've been rubbed down and turn into a solid tone. And then I add texture and pattern and variety through the use of hatching. And what, what draws me to, to draw like this is it gives me an opportunity to really learn how to interpret objects and like three-dimension and then translate them to, you know, onto a two-dimensional picture plane like a piece of paper. And I was actually thinking about it this morning when I was thinking about getting started on this drawing is like, why? Why do a drawing like this? And there are several reasons. One is it's easier to learn how to interpret and understand how to take a complex subject matter like a peony and turn it into an artistic expression. I find that drawing is just so much easier than painting is using graphite. Because maybe I spent hours and hours with a pencil in my hand as a kid. I find that working with graphite is just a natural extension of who I am. And then it, So therefore, it makes it a little bit easier to look and interpret and explore. With that. I want to, I want to fine tune my skill set, I guess, at interpreting the visual world. And this gives me an opportunity to do that. And it gives me an opportunity that's easy. I can start and stop this exercise write-off. As a whole, graphite is a very innocuous medium. Two So it just, you know, it really allows for a lot of versatility. So I'm slowly building up, squint my eyes. That helps me to distinguish different planes. I use a different direction of hatching. That I think also helps. Sometimes. In the initial drawing. I might have missed or didn't add tone, like right here in that tone. So I'm going to add tone. Now. I want to, I have these red marks that are very dark. And I get to decide, do I want to include them into my drawing? Or do I want to ignore that shift in value and just really focus on the white flower petals. And I'm thinking I'm just going to focus on the white flower petals. Lot going on in there. Some lighter tones, mid tones in there. But I'm going to use my to-be for that one. And I'm going to continue sketching light, a little bit of tone. They're actually put in a little town with a dirty Kleenex and I have leftover. Then this petal needs to be erased out. Here we go. Right here. I'm starting to move into the light tones, which I'm gonna be using my two beats. So before I switch over and move over here, I'm going to actually get down here into my darker values with my and stay with my four B for just a little bit longer. Okay. 26. REVISED LESSON 09 second flower hatching part 2: I am so pleased with how this is turning out. I'm going to work in this area right here. And then I'm going to fine tune what's going on in these areas and then finish up with that area. That's my plan. We'll see if it goes exactly like that, but I think it will. Okay. Okay. Here we go. So I got a little bit off on my drawing around here. The anatomy is just a wee bit off. Instead of like erasing and redrawing, I'm going to adapt it. And the only people that will know that I got the anatomy off on this flower are you and me? I I don't hold myself to such a precious it's okay. I don't mind that. I'm also a little bit my goal always with these drawings is to make sure that I'm really celebrating the beauty of the flowers. And I feel I am still a very good when That's a little bit hard build-up right there. And that's that's come from having two patches of Hatch come over and like by coincidence, land on top of each other very well. I don't want to smooth that out, but I don't rub it out. I actually redraw it by reestablishing my hatch. But instead of going up to it, I could barely to the edge. And the same goes. I want to transition this a little bit more. So I draw up to it but not over it there, and that kinda cleans it up. What I'm noticing is this area needs to be just a little bit darker. So I'm going to oops, I was using harder pressure, which is what I wanted. But I broke broke my tip. That's okay. I'm going there. That's really dark there. And that's also a really dark there. Then it dissipates out. That's really dark right there. So I'm going to put that. So this needs to be just a little bit darker. Wrinkles. I am pleased with how everything is going, but now I'm switching over. I'm going to switch over to my tube, which is my medium value lead. Okay, so there we are. And this amine now, there's a couple of things that I want to clean up. I'm noticing, So I need to lighten some put some lighter notes here. So I'm going to use my kneaded eraser a bit. So lovely. So Tooby goes down lighter in value than the four B does. With, if I use the same pressure as I was using with the four B, which creates some nice variety having hat using the two different LEDS. And then like I notice, this is done with four B, but it needs to go just a little bit darker. So I'm going to reinforce it with just another layer. To be squint my eyes. Same goes for over here. This needs to be a little bit darker. I'm going to put that in his kitchen light right here. Let's capture that. Here we go. Now. Here we go. Turn your paper if you need to. So I made the decision, I want this petal to be stronger, so I'm adding a dark value around it to make that petal seems stronger than it than it is. So that way, it kinda just stands out a little bit more, which I have that, I have that ability and power to do that as a, as an artist, we get to choose how we want to emphasize things if we want to. And I'm choosing to emphasize my pedal that way. This is a little bit darker, so I'm going to put that darker in there. We go. Capture some of my lights. Love drawing with with these erasers. Are you drawn negatively? Okay. Here we go. That's looking so good. 27. REVISED LESSON 10 second flower hatching part 3: Brian continues to be developed and I'm really liking how it's going so far. I am going to start moving over to this area. And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to put in the leaf, I want to work on the connection between the two flowers. So let's work on that. So first off, very dark from here. And then we kinda comes like that. Here we go. Like that. It's a little bit different than what is in the photograph. Reference again, a little bit of I've shifted some things anatomically, let it all works out. So the one thing I do notice that I wanna get in right away though, is I want to get this light tip in. I want to get that edge in. I know I'm going to have to erase out more, but I'm going to work on that right now. Needs to be lighter to as does this edge right here and right edge right there. So we'll get those values in, and then this edge right there. Okay? So by establishing those lighter edges and helps me make judgment. And now, granted, this is like almost black, so I'm putting in a back-and-forth hatch for the dark of this of this leaf. I'm not going to erase on because I'm not going to erase. I want to make sure that I want to minimize my need to erase. So I'm actually going to use a crib or I'm going to use a sheet of paper. And I'm going to draw up two. So I put the, I got to be very careful because the stickiness. There we go. So I'm gonna draw up to that edge with my hatch. You see that guarantees that I don't go over where I don't want to go over, especially with that edge being so light. That's a little hack. You can use a little bit more pressure and not. And then two, to make sure that these new hatches I don't want to go over because then that will create a darker line. I draw right up to what I had previously, where my hatchet previously ended. I have pretty good control, so I don't always need that paper edge. But when I do need it, I don't mind getting it out to try it out. Go. Now let's get the lighter part of the Greenleaf's, but there's still, it's still significantly darker than any of the white. So with that in mind, even though like this area right here is catching light, still lighter, still significantly darker than any of my script, my eyes, it almost goes away. So crosshatch is a little bit darker right here. So I'm gonna put that curve in. There is a vine, the vein, I mean, so I'm going to on the leaf, so I'm using that as a natural place to stop my hatching. I went to hatch here. Okay. That leeches in. Now, I will go back to using a to-be. A little bit lighter. Some hatching going on right there. Okay. So I'm going to have lots of fun shifting over to that. 28. REVISED LESSON 11 second flower hatching part 4: I love this phase of the drawing when I am just getting ready to finish up. So I want to work through and refine some areas here. So I'm going to get rid of some of my construction lines. I'm going to soften all of those lines. Kneaded eraser is amazing because it's a soft eraser. It you can use it to soften things. You can draw with it too. I think that is where I need to be with with Brian. There's always some level of change in all train and so be aware of that as well. There's I1, so soft right there. Then you've got some wiggle. This pedal comes here. Then it catches light. Him, another panel comes in and over. And then there's another petal right there, and this is the outermost pedal. I went a little bit of dither. So I want that, sorry. I kinda like having those two lines right there kind of creates some visual interest. It's catching lines. There we go. Right there. Right there. So pretty right there. I am reorganizing, Finding my space all through here. What that does is that helps me choose areas that need refinement and what needs to be left alone because this are some of the shadowing is very subtle. And I want to make sure that I I am working within there. There's, it's darker in value right here. So I'm going to hatch slightly different hatch patterns. Your stuff going on. Anatomically, my flower is a little bit too small in this area. But that's okay. I will still make it work. And only you and I know that it's not exactly as our photo reference. And so keep that in mind, guys. When you're drawing flowers. I always strive to get to a certain level of accuracy. But it's not like doing a portrait of a person. Or if you're an eighth of an inch off, everybody and their uncle will know that you're off in drawing that knows, or that i with flowers. Most people, you know, they know what a flower looks like. They may not know exactly how this specific flower looks like, so we can adapt as needed. Catching light. There. This one on this panel, I'm choosing to leave the tone as is. I'm not going to alter it. Match is the tone is the value of where it needs to be. And so I'm going to just let that go. Worked a little bit here on the tone of this guy. So pretty little bit darker down in here. So I'm going to see. There we go. Sometimes the shift is very, very subtle and you don't want to go overboard. In my transitions. Like when we're dealing with a flower, like a peony flower like this. I always like to first break down my values into simple, really simple. So like my dark is dark, my medium dark, medium light and my lightest light. But then as I go through the refining process, I might have anywhere 20-30 different value gradations. And they're always kinda dependent also on what's adjacent to them. And that helps with, with, you know, keeping interest and creating three-dimensional volume. This flower right here has reflected light along the back. So I'm not going to touch that. And it's got, it's catching light right here on its edge. So I want to erase out. Might be it looks like it's catching it right here too. And so behind it is a little bit darker. So I'm going to this is this part is lighter than what's going on right there. From here to here, it's darker. But then as it goes over here it gets lighter. So I'm going to and then this pedal, it rolls. There's, there's reflected light right here. So I'm not gonna do anything. But then there's like a bit of a form shadow because it's the petals crawling. And just by the way, the direction of the light is, it's, the petal is its most opaque. I'm going to first put in one cross hatch. And then I'm going to cross hatch again. Then I noticed that this area right here has more, a little bit darker. So I'm going to put that variety in the course. Reflected light. That up. Here we go. You've got some dark there. Let's see, this part of this petal is really dark, so I'm going to put that in darker. Then we have some petal here that is capturing my darker. So I'm going to then it starts to go lighter. Cut some stuff going on here. You've got a pedal, comes out, curls ender on itself. Then we have some light, little catching light pieces. Then this guy's like that. We've got where it's catching light here. Kind of shadowy here. This is my favorite part of hatching actually is when you're dealing with all these little tiny nuances. When you can get most expressive and playful with your hatching. I'm using very light touches on all of this too. I don't want to be extra that needs to be extra clean. And then there's these little guys that are up. There we go, There's something there. Okay. And notice that this has to be lighter anyway, so I might as well erase that too. Okay, so I'm getting there. Okay. Okay. So now the edge is lighter, so I'm going to there and then you've got a light edge, but then it's dark here. And darker here. Darker. 29. 12 Peony dwg demo Finalizing the Drawing: I am so pleased with how this painting has turned out. I would say that it is complete. When I finish a drawing, I always take a few moments and sit at it and look at it and like, first of all, decide whether or not there needs to be anything that needs to unify the piece because I drew these two flowers independently, I then make a decision. Is there anything that needs to be adapted and to create some more visual unity between the two. In sitting here talking about it, I notice that the value shift from here to here in the central ball of the, of this peony is not distinguished enough in that it's not telling that the story that this is my dark side and this is my light side enough. So I need to actually, I've got a for B and I need to actually deepen some of my values on this side. So that's what I'm gonna do real quick as part of the final final. And I'll just tell you something. And that is that I don't consider a piece of work finished until it goes away to a new home. I always have an opportunity to go back and rework in it if I want to. And there's something to be said about that having that flexibility and knowing that I can always go back in or I find a ton of value in that. Okay, So I'm going to deepen this just a little bit. Because as I deepen this, this is lighter in value than this portion of the drawing. And then it still is. So I mean, it's even there. Right here. Here we go. She said this area needs to be deepened in value. This whole area right here. And appear. If I squint my eyes. Look at this again. Let's look at starting to make it feel deeper and value. And I squint and this is actually too light. That's part of my problem. Yes, it's catching light, but it wasn't as light and value as I had given it. Same goes for here. Same goes for over here. There we go. Fair? Okay. As a whole, I think I did a really good job of unifying the two pieces. I do see a couple of areas that I do want to refine, but as a whole, I'm loving how this piece came together. So the only thing that I'm noticing is there's a little bit of disunity between the darkest dark of this flower with the darkest dark of this, of this flower. I want it, and it happens to be this petal right here. So I want to create a little bit more unity with that, and I will do that shortly. But also, every time I work on a piece of work, I make a point at the end of it to identify the three things that I learned from the experience. This helps me stay away from being so outcome focused, but instead to focus on my process. So I'm going to first, what I'm going to I'm going to darken that. But while I'm darkening, I'm going to talk about what I learned from this experience every time I draw, I learned something new and I value that experience. And so one of the things that I learned, because I have not drawn a complex peony flower drawing like this before, is that I learned that it takes longer than I anticipated. And that the slowness of me coming at it makes for a really wonderful experience. So that's one of them. And so I learned that the next time I come, I learned that the next time I work on a peony drawing, I will give myself more time to complete it. So that way I don't feel rushed. But also so that I will enjoy the process a little bit more. See I'm squinting my eyes. Okay. I also need to work in that area right there. And then I had one areas that one spot that I also noticed on this flower that I need to, I want it to roll more. And it's, It's this transition right here. Yes, it is light. But there's just a little bit of variation enrolling. So I'm going to adjust and put just a slight hatch to make it roll just a little bit better. Yeah, there we go. Okay. So that is the the peony drawing completed. Again. Three things you learned from it. Plan more time. Make sure I really connect with the process while I'm drawing it. Connecting them with the process and enjoying every hatch stroke deepens the pleasure of the drawing. And I absolutely love how this piece worked out. So thank you so much for joining this lesson, and I cannot wait to see your drawings.