Whimsically simplified Plants

1. Intro and Trailer: Hi, my name is Ramona Clean and I am a freelance illustrator and art teacher and basically a killer of plants. I don't know about you, but I love plants, indoor plants, outdoor plants, all the plants. I just make me relax naturally. I wanted to draw them. However, when I went to draw them, I found that I would get too detailed with the sketches. And when you're doing a larger bush or shrub or tree, that doesn't really work. I came up with a system to break that down, to simplify it, come up with the basic shape. So it still looks like the plant you're drawing, but isn't full of tiny details. It looks whimsical and fun and colorful. Join me in this class and you will learn how to simplify plants. 2. Supplies: Hello guys, Welcome to my supply video. I'm just going to show you all the supplies that I will be using in this class. Let's just jump right in. This is a Sendak mini that is holding all my art supplies. And this is a pentel water brush. So I use this all the time when I go out of the house, Super handy, you just fill up the barrel with water. You don't have to bring a cup or an extra brush, it's so handy. Then next I have a bunch of colored pencils that I use. They're a mix of scholar and prisma color. Faber Castel. Yeah. Pretty good quality because they blend better when they are. This is a dark green color which I use quite often. The pine green, I have a raw Umber, Albert D, I'm not sure how you say that, but that's the brand. And then a darker pencil and a black, which I rarely use, but sometimes do. This is my art tool kit, demi palette. It's so cute and so tiny and inspires me to do art all the time. Super handy. I just clip it onto my sketchbook when I want to work, when I'm outside of the house. And I just need to remember to bring some tissues with me so I can wipe it off between colors. I also bring with me a Stateler pencil sharpener. It's really small. It's metal. It's very durable. And I put in this little tin so that it catches all the shavings. Super handy to carry with me, and I just tuck that into my pencil role, keeps it nice and safe. This is my medi five sketchbook. The paper is super smooth, like the best for watercolor, but I find it works really well as well. Here's just a few of my sketchbook pages. Yeah, the sketchbook is great, but it is not hardcover. If you wanted to stand up, it might not be the best. Here is my role. I carry this with me most places. Super handy. You just roll that together and then it just tucks into your bag. 3. Plant Inspiration: Hey guys, I just wanted to show you a few examples of how you can use these plants in your artwork and the potential of what you can make. Just open it up to this page. This was outside of a coffee shop. There was a few flower displays. I'll get into how we do this, but basically, I put down a layer of color first and then just build on top with the colored pencil. Sometimes I like to leave areas without the water color. Just do a line drawing because it makes the contrast bigger, makes your eye go directly to the plants. Here's another one, this just had like flowers draping over the edge of the square. Some plants in this landscape here, some grass trees. Those can all be added to landscapes or just sketches on their own of what you would like to draw. This is not my favorite, but it was a snake plant that was coming outside of this pillar. I probably would have made this color, not colored this part in so that the plant stood out or used a darker color. So there's more contrast. But you get the idea, Get past all these. Then here was a couple landscapes or buildings I did, there's just a few like scribbly plants in there. Then wells here. I left mostly the building unpainted, but I painted splotches in for the plants, which is just really nice because it just lends a hint of green popping out. And yeah, I think it looks pretty good. Let me have some potted plants here which are the same concept, like leaving the bottom just line and then coloring in the plants with the water color. Let's get past those. This I did the other day. I went to Van Dusen Gardens. Beautiful place there. Yeah, same thing. I just started with the watercolor first and then added overtop all the different details. Even here with the flowers, I did just a splotch of orange doing the basic shape of the flowers, but use the colored pencil to really define the shape. Then with the rock, started off with some gray, did a base color of green for the grass, and then just added little details over top. And there you go, very excited. Join me and I will show you exactly how I did that. When you are following along, just go underneath in the resources and find the photos, and that way you can do it along with me and you can follow along on your own screen. Thanks so much. 4. Plant 1: Shapes and colour: Let's get into our first plant. This is the plant that we're going to be drawing today. Can see the shape of the leaves. These are mostly the colored pencils that I will be using. We're going to start off and I'm just going to take a look at the close up shots of these leaves. And I'm just going to draw them here pretty big, so I can understand those shapes. I'm just starting off with a pretty basic one. You can see it front on. I'm not worrying about drawing it in too much detail, but I want to make sure that I really study that shape. I'm just looking at the vines now and I'm adding those in, in the correct direction that they go. Simplifying it a little bit, but taking note of where all those veins will go. Did I say vines? Anyway, I meant in. Now I'm going to look at another shape. This one bends towards us a little bit, there's a bit of overlap. You're seeing some of the underside of that leaf again, this just helps us to understand what the different leaf shapes are that we might find in a bush that's full of these. I'm just adding in those vans and there we go. I'm going to take that arrow and I'm going to simplify those shapes down into small drawings. I'm going to take those ones that I've already practiced and look at the further away picture of these plants. By the way, all of these plant photos will be underneath. They'll be available to you for download, so you can use these to practice and follow along. Here's some of the shapes that I saw. I'm just drawing them in really simplified versions. I'm not going to add all the little veins into it, but I'm just taking those shapes I just practiced and just practicing adding them together in a bush like shape. I'm not worrying too much about what the actual shapes are, I'm just using what I practiced and getting some muscle memory in my hand to add those all together. Once you've done it quite a few times, you start to understand what those shapes are and how to move them. 5. Plant 1: Coloured Pencil: Now we are going to do the full watercolor version. I like to do a base of watercolor and just do splotches of that color first. I'm taking note of the general shape of the bush, but I'm not getting too worked up about where all the leaves are going. I'm just starting with blotches. I started with the light green because that is the lightest color and I'm working darker. I started with the lime green going into a bit of a darker and adding more blue into it for shadow. Now I'm taking my medium green color. I'm just adding in those shapes that we did above. I'm making some overlap and smaller, larger. Yeah. I'm just trying to fill out that shape. What I like to do is have the leaves go outside of the color. I think it just looks cool. You get that detail coming out of it, very appealing. When you're done, you can see I'm just fully going outside that color. I'm not going to go back in with water color to fill those in. I'm just going to leave it outside now. I have grabbed the darker green. You can start with the darker green. I actually think I would prefer to do it that way. I don't know why I started with the lighter, but yeah, I'm just overlapping those shapes. If I run into one of the leaves, then I just will go underneath it, choose what's on top. Because whatever you draw first will be the top layer. And then what you draw underneath, you just go underneath so that it looks like it's overlapping. I'm just making a whole bunch of those shapes. Some of those leaves, I'm adding lines in the middle, and some of them I'm not. But I will go back later and just add a few more of those middle vein lines. I'm just going back in with the lighter color. Now that I've added the darker, just to mix it up, I'm switching back and forth seeing which sections have more lighter green, which would need a bit more darker. I would keep a lot of the darker green in the corner because that's where the shadows are coming out. I'm just filling those shapes in there. But I do want there to be a mix of the two different color greens for the leaves just because it adds some nice visual interest. I'm just taking my light green now and I'm just adding little stems and coloring a few of the leaves just to create some depth and color. Just filling in in between the leaves as well because I will be darkening some of those up for shadows. I'm grabbing a slightly darker green, just going in all the in between spaces just to build up that shadow as well. When I get to the bottom there, I'm not worrying too much about filling in the whole thing with leaves. I just added some scribbles there just to add a little bit of texture. And it doesn't put the same shapes everywhere. This is purple, it's my dark purple pencil crayon. Again, going in those little crevices, those shadow areas, I try to think what's underneath the leaves. Where would there be shadows? Right? It just gives you that depth. Shows you that those leaves are overlapping each other and there's leaves that are darker underneath with the shadows. I think I just added some darker blue. Yeah, Doing the same thing, just choosing some different areas overlapping with some of the. Now I'm just adding in veins, so I'm choosing the medium green for some, usually just going over the same leaves. But sometimes I switch it up just because I don't get too precious with these drawings. Because a lot of it I find just comes from like whatever I'm feeling in the moment. But it does take practice to get to the point where you feel confident enough to do that. So here we go. Here is our finished bush. You can see that there's nice shadows at the bottom there and yeah. Thanks so much. Join me for the next video. 6. Plant 2: Shapes: This next plant has a wiggly leaf shape. I wanted to choose something a little bit differently so you know how to go about doing different types of leaves. I'm doing the same thing I did with the first one. I'm just going in there and adding wiggly leaf shapes, just looking at one leaf in particular, adding in some folds. I apologize that the camera is not focusing on the drawing, but hopefully you'll be able to see it enough. I'm adding those veins as well. They're pretty dark on the leaves themselves. Yeah. Easy to spot where they go. Now I'm choosing another one. Just look at individual leaves on their own, adding all those wiggles to the edges and then look at any overlapping bits that curl over. That's what I'm just adding to the edges there. They curl over so you see part of the sides. And then adding in those veins, I'm choosing another shape. I'm starting to get a little bit looser with my hand, not following leaf perfectly. I'm starting to get an idea of what these look like. I'm just following the image but also going quickly because I'm starting to learn what those shapes are. Again, just trying out a few shapes. If you are feeling a little bit lost with how you want to draw them and it's a slow process, just take a bit more time as you're practicing these first leaves to really understand what those shapes are. Now I'm going to go ahead and draw those in a more simplified version, not going to add as much detail. Here is the photo of the larger branch. Seeing the photo smaller like that helps me not put too much detail into these drawings. I'm just choosing a few different leaves, working on those shapes. I'm adding some veins into this one, but when I do the final, I won't worry so much about those. I'm just getting loose with my hand, making those really wiggly shapes. I'm holding my brush a little bit higher than I normally would to get those wobbly, fun shapes. I'm just mixing up a green here for my base. I'm doing a browny green for the stem of this tree. I don't want to put it into thick because I'm going to be overlapping this with a lot of the green for the leaves. But I just want a base for where to put all my leaves. 7. Plant 2: Colouring: I'm mixing up a lighter, brighter green. Now I'm going to go in and just put splotches of color in the basic shape that I'm seeing on that tree. I'm just going right over top of the branches And some of that color will just blend out into the color that I'm now adding, which is good. We want to see it a little bit, but not too much. Then I'm going in with a bit more bluey green just for those shadows. Same thing we did in the last one. But this one, the color is a little bit more dispersed over the whole plant. Again, I'm just adding these really messy splotches in with a bit of a brighter green to create depth. Because these leaves are jotting out everywhere, I'm just using the tip of my brush to add these tiny little bits to the edges. You'll see I'm just adding these little leaf shapes so that it resembles the photo I'm looking at. I'm taking my darker green. Now, I learned from my last one to start with the darker green, I'm just filling in all the leaves that look like they're in the front. Adding those shapes that I started learning above. I'm just letting my hand get really messy with it. I've sped up the video here so you don't have to watch me to every single leaf. I don't actually draw this fast, but yeah, just filling out the shape, leaving some space so I can use another color to get into those different areas. As you see, the further I go, the more messy I get with these leaf shapes. I don't stick as much to the original, but I think it works out and it looks free and messy and fun. Now just filling that out, I'm going in with some yellow. I like to use yellow over top of green because it gives it a lighter green look, gives it some dimension. I'm just going over some of the leaves, but not all of them. Then I'm using a lightish brown to go over the branches where I would want them to stand out. Obviously, there are leaves overlapping with that branch. I'm not going to fill in the whole line, but going to leave spots in between for those leaves. Now I am starting to build up some shadows. This is my darker purple color, and I'm just going in between some of those leaves, building up the most in the center. To show those shadows, again, just spit it up so you don't have to watch the whole thing. I'm doing the same thing with the blue. I find using the dark purple and the indigo blue are really helpful for those shadows, because black is really intense. Unless I'm drawing something that I want to be really dark, having those two colors really work, there you go. There is our plant, our tree. And join me in the next one, we will be doing one more. 8. Plant 3: Shape break down: Our third plant is this beautiful big leaf something. But I just really love the shapes in these leaves. Again, same as the last two. We are starting off figuring out the shape of these leaves. Just going in with the big one cutting out that back part for where the stem connects. Again, I am not adding too much detail, but I do want to figure out the direction that those veins are going in and it doesn't seem to quite reach the edge of the leaf. That's why I'm just doing those flowy lines that don't quite make it to the edge. We're working on our second one, just picking out different leaves from the bush and seeing how they differ in shape, from different perspectives and different areas. The nice thing about these leaves is those veins give you like a really nice flow motion to the leaf. Then I wanted to practice adding in that stem because the stems are pretty thick and they just go straight into that leaf. Just curving those over, showing you the perspective of the plant with those veins. We're taking those shapes and we're going to simplify them. I'm looking at the larger bush photo here, so I can pick out more shapes. But also again, looking at them from farther away helps us not to focus on so many small details of what we're looking at. It helps us just see the overall shape. Because these leaves are bigger, I probably will add the veins to a few of the leaves when I do the full bush. But we're just practicing here, adding in a few lines, not as many as I did for the initial sketches. And I'm just playing here with the stems coming from behind other leaves to kind of build up that bush like appearance. 9. Plant 3: drawing: I'm just starting out with a really light green because some of those leaves in there are a yellowy green. I'm just putting in blotches that are in an overall circular shape, making that lighter green the base. And then going in with a bit of a darker green and just adding that to that color, it blends in really nicely. That's a nice thing about water color is that the colors can really blend together. I'm just adding a little bit more blue for those shadows. Going into the middle where there's a lot of shadows there and picking out from the reference image where those darker green bits are collecting. I notice as I'm looking at this, that it's not just a full clump of green. All these veins and leaves come out from that main shape. I want to make sure to add those extra little bits. I am thinking about what the leaf shape will look like. I'm doing these rough leaf shapes on the edges just inspire me for where to put those actual leaves, But I'm not worrying too much about making them perfect, because I can just change the shape of them. When I add in my colored pencil, I'm just starting with my dark green, pine green colored pencil, starting from the middle of the bush, because that's the top and everything comes out from that middle shape. I definitely want to draw the stuff that's on top first so that I can draw the stuff peeking out underneath under that. Not getting too precious about the shapes here, just using the reference as inspiration and then adjusting the shape as I feel like as I go. I'm just trying to give that overlap, having those leaves peeking out from underneath other leaves. But I also wanted to show some of those stems coming out so that you get a mix of the more dense bushy area in the middle. Then as you go out stems, they poke out of the shape. Here you can see that, that green bit inspired where that leaf went. But I didn't worry too much about actually putting it exactly where that green is. This other one I followed a little bit more closely, but just adjusted based on however I felt like making that leaf in the moment I'm getting a little bit quicker with my lines. I sped this up just feeling out what would look good with the piece, not exactly where it is on the actual reference photo, but how to build up that bushy look while having the straggly leaves on the outside of that shape. Again, I like to have some leaves coming outside of the color. I think it just looks really nice. Then you get that detail in the variation with the shapes and colors just adding in a few veins, a little bit of detail, but not too much adding some visual interest. 10. Plant 3 shadows: Now I'm going in with my teal blue color just to add in some color and depth to those leaves inside, which looks really nice. Over top of the base of color for the water color colored pencil gives you a really nice texture. I like to get scribbly with it because that gives you these cool lines and life to the drawing that you're making. You can see there, there's just a lot of scribbles. It's going in, looking for the areas that are underneath some of the other leaves because that's building up the shadow. Now I'm adding in more of that lighter green. I'm looking for those yellowy green leaves that I see in the image, choosing to go in less of the shadowy areas and more of the highlighted areas with this color. Then I'm taking my darker green and just building up on top of some of those colors and adding in new spots. But again, I am looking at the shadowy areas right where the one leaf tucks under another. That's a really good spot to add shadows. And then in between spaces between the leaves, just to show that underneath is more or there are more leaves, but they are a little bit more in shadow. Then I wanted to add a little bit more color into this. I chose my lighter purple just to go around those middle leaves because I really wanted those to stand out. I think it's just fun adding in that lighter, magenta purple for some shadow. I know that I'm going to be going over some of that with my darker purple, so I'm not too worried about it not looking dark enough. Then I'm taking my blue color here and outlining some of those shapes that I really want to stand out. Going back into those shadows, again, building up colored pencil on top of each other just gives you a really nice depth. And the colors together just look really cool. I usually start with the lighter colors and then build up to the darker. But again, here, I added some yellow. Just going over those spots where I went in with the lighter green color just to bring it up. I am using a black here, but that's only because the shadows weren't quite dark enough. And I wanted a few leaves to pop out, us outlining some of those main leaves that I want to stand out from the rest. And then I'm going in some of the shadows with some of that black just to emphasize them a little bit more and get them to stick out. There we go, there is our bush of fancy leaves. I hope you enjoyed these three lessons. Yeah, just try it out yourself. Use the reference images and I'll close out in the next video. I'll see you there, bye. 11. Closing thoughts: Hey guys. Thanks so much for taking this class. I hope you had fun simplifying those plants and making a colorful and whimsical on your page. Please post any photos of your pages, any questions you have below. And stay tuned because there will be a lot more videos coming if you have any suggestions. Also for classes, I would love to hear it as well. So have a great day and go sniff a plant or something.