Category: Peeking Behind the Easel

Finished! Here is the finished drawing:

I am happy with how it turned out. I wanted to capture the simple beauty of daffodils in black and white.  I kept the drawing to a roughly 5 x 7 space as I worked. After playing with different size matting and color, I opted for a slightly larger matting to focus the eye on the drawing. I also thought that the white matting helped to bring out better contrast between the light and dark of the drawing.
You can find this drawing at my art shop – SibStudio  – on Etsy.

I’ve been working on the daffodil drawing:

I use the light sketched shapes to guide the drawing and the photos to check the details of the daffodils. I love working on the details of the drawing – it is really fun to see the image in my mind transform on to the paper.  Stay tuned to part 3, the completion of the drawing.

The daffodils are in full bloom here in Pennsylvania! I love watching them open and turn up towards the sunlight. I had to stop and grab my pencils and capture their simple beauty.

The weather is still iffy with rain, so I took some photos as references to work from.  I start my drawings with  a very loose sketch with a HB graphite pencil of the basic shapes of the flowers and leaves.  For a small drawings, a clip board is a great tool to mount the paper on.

I worked with 4B, 5B, and 8B soft graphite pencils. 4B is my favorite because it is just dark enough to get great contrast in the details and still be able to lift it off with an eraser to create lighter areas.  I started in the negative space between the leaves to establish the darkest parts of the drawing, and began laying in the stems and leaves.  Stay tuned to Part 2!