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    Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils
    Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils
    Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils
    Ebook309 pages2 hours

    Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils

    By Ann Swan

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    This beautifully illustrated ebook is the first practical step-by-step guide to using coloured pencils in botanical painting and is written by Ann Swan, one of the top exponents of the genre.

    Water-soluble and oil-based coloured pencils are becoming increasingly popular for botanical painting as they are easier to use than traditional watercolour and are more forgiving, yet they produce the same stunning effects. They are especially suitable for the accuracy needed to paint in the botanical style of illustration.

    In this book Ann Swan gives helpful advice on all aspects of working with coloured pencils, including the techniques you will have to master – underpainting, layering and burnishing. She also demontrates how to mix and build up colour, and how to add those finishing touches that will complete your painting successfully.

    Several full step-by-step demonstrations are included to show how these techniques are put into practice. The book concludes with a gallery of coloured pencil works by the author, students of botanical painting and other professional botanical painters, providing a wonderful source of reference and inspiration.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateOct 25, 2018
    ISBN9780008328252
    Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils

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    Reviews for Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Very clear and detailed explanations! A must for all those who want to learn botanical panting!
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book. Well thought out and laid-out; beautiful illustrations and printing and really practical instructions about techniques.Coloured pencils tends to be looked down on by water colour artists but when I showed some of the illustrations in this book to some fellow water-colourists...they were highly impressed. One had already tried coloured pencil drawing of botanical subjects and made the comment that it was hard work....her arm was sore after a day spent pressing heavily and embossing to get the desired effects. I've tried some coloured pencil work and it's great for getting very fine details and for the control it gives but I'm afraid my efforts paled into insignificance compared with Ann Swan's work. She approaches the subject in the standard way: Materials, colours, techniques such as erasing, embossing, working from dark to light, using solvents ....then moving on to actual worked examples with a time sequence of pictures (i found this really helpful) ...then a gallery and finally some hints about cleaning up the works and presentation. All in all a useful and helpful book. Five stars from me.

    Book preview

    Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils - Ann Swan

    INTRODUCTION

    In Spring, when Flow’rs your garden grace,

    With Needle or Pencil you can trace

    Each curious Form, and various Dye

    So represent unto the Eye,

    Nobly proportion ev’ry part,

    That Nature blushes at your Art.

    John Rea, Flora, 1665

    Coloured pencil is an ideal medium for botanical painting. It is immediate, portable, easily manipulated and very forgiving, making it useful for both the beginner and the more accomplished artist.

    This is a very exciting time to be working in coloured pencils. Since I came to the medium in the late 1980s, many new and extended ranges have been introduced that contain better quality and more lightfast pigments. There is also a great variety of blender pencils, blender pens and battery-operated erasers now available. All these new products make it so much easier to produce vibrant and finely detailed plant portraits.

    I started using coloured pencils as a way of introducing areas of colour into my detailed graphite pencil drawings. I tried watercolour, but I could not cope with using brushes – they seemed to have a will of their own – and all my colours turned to mud. At first I used colour only for part of the image, but as I have learned more about coloured pencils and the way they perform I have concentrated on enjoying colour.

    ∆ ‘JANUARY KING’ CABBAGE

    30 x 32 cm (12 x 13 in) Coloured pencil and graphite pencil over underpainting.

    Through this book I hope to share with you the techniques, tips and ideas that I have tried and tested. With a clear overview of the materials that are currently available and how to use them, the book shows you how best to get to know your subject and explains how to create interesting and eye-catching compositions. It also looks at ways of finely tuning your work and presenting it well, both on the ‘page’ and in the frame. Finally, there is a gallery showing some beautiful work by other artists and students who use this versatile and increasingly popular medium.

    ∆ A watercolourist recently described coloured pencil as being of no use for depicting fine detail. Maybe this butterfly, which repeatedly tried to land on my drawing of beetroot at an exhibition, had not read those words!

    TRADITIONAL BOTANICAL ART

    Traditionally botanical painting has been the realm of the watercolourist, but more and more artists are discovering that coloured pencil can be a very effective alternative to watercolour. If you find painting difficult, then this is the ideal way to achieve colourful and detailed botanical studies. The quality of materials is improving all the time and, with several ranges of pencils being rated as lightfast, work created now in coloured pencil will last as long as paintings executed in watercolour.

    People are often dismissive of coloured pencils because they are associated with the poor quality crayons of childhood. Well yes, my pictures are effectively ‘done with crayons’, but with materials of very high specification and quality. Too often coloured-pencil work can appear grainy and too obviously pencil, but this may be because the paper used was not smooth enough, the pencil was not sharp, or the pencil was applied too lightly and not layered or blended. However, by using the techniques I will show you it is possible to achieve brilliant, lively colours and a painterly effect.

    The use of coloured pencil as a medium for botanical illustration is a relatively new phenomenon and there is still some resistance against it. I hope to dispel outdated ideas and show that coloured pencil as a medium for botanical painting is very much here to stay. Equally there is some debate in horticultural circles as to the subjects that should be covered by botanical art. My own remit is wide and includes fungi as well as plant material.

    I teach my methods around the UK and Europe, and also in the USA and New Zealand, and I am constantly surprised by the wealth of talent already emerging in this medium and the huge enthusiasm to learn this technique.

    WATERCOLOUR vs COLOURED PENCIL

    If you do not like using brushes, but love drawing, as I do, then coloured pencil could be the medium for you. Unlike watercolour, coloured pencil is a very forgiving medium. It can be lifted off and reapplied, mistakes can be rubbed out and colours can be layered and re-layered to achieve pure, vibrant tones. A major advantage of coloured pencil is that once you have some knowledge of the techniques and the way different colours behave when layered, you can be sure to reproduce exactly the same effect over and over again, whereas watercolour mixes can often be rather hit and miss.

    Another advantage is that coloured pencils are very portable, so with a selection of maybe 20 to 25 colours, some paper, an eraser and a sharpener you are ready to hit the road, and there is no washing of brushes and palettes afterwards.

    We are all used to handling writing implements, so using pencils comes much more naturally to us. Brushes can be frustratingly difficult to control and sometimes seem to have a life of their own; a stray hair can spring out and ruin a clean line whereas coloured pencil is much easier to control.

    I hope this book will introduce you to the wonderful world of coloured pencil for botanical painting and will encourage you to make your own explorations and discover new ways of working in this very versatile and exciting medium. Enjoy!

    ∆ BEETROOT TRIO

    50 x 36 cm (20 x 14 in) Coloured pencil and graphite pencil.

    CHAPTER 1

    MATERIALS

    THE WIDE ARRAY of coloured pencils available to the artist can be daunting and confusing, especially to the beginner. New colours are constantly coming onto the market, and the names of existing pencils change or colours are discontinued, sometimes returning in a different form. Additionally, good quality materials are not always easy to obtain and may need searching for, while poorer quality alternatives seem to be in every shop. In this chapter I will endeavour to guide you safely through the materials’ minefield and introduce you to the full range of equipment that you will find useful.

    In order to ensure good results, as with any form of artistic work, try to use the best quality coloured pencils you can afford. Sometimes bargains can be had, but most good quality art materials are a bit more expensive. You generally get what you pay for, but do not be put off by the huge choice of materials as you can get up and running for a relatively small outlay in terms of cost.

    Do not rush out and buy full sets of coloured pencils. You will find that many colours in these sets are not needed in botanical work, in particular many of the more lurid greens, turquoises and blues. It is better to buy single pencils and build up a collection of colours that you know you will use. Especially avoid the small tins of 12 or 24 colours as at least half of them will be no use for botanical work.

    ∆ SPANISH POMEGRANATES

    Punica granatum

    45 x 30 cm (18 x 12 in)

    ∆ Artist Ann Swan at work in her studio.

    BASIC START-UP KIT

    You can add more pencils and other equipment as you progress, but these items will start you off.

    • 2 graphite pencils – HB and H

    • 20 to 25 good quality coloured pencils

    • Sharpener with spiral blade

    • Hot-pressed paper – at least 300 gsm (140 lb)

    • Plastic eraser

    • Sketch paper

    • Magnifying glass

    COLOURED PENCILS

    The coloured strip, or core, of a coloured pencil consists of pigment held together with either a wax or an oil-based binder. The binder can either be watersoluble, to make a pencil that can be used with water, or non-soluble and this type is mainly used dry. Generally speaking, you will find that more expensive pencils have better quality pigments and tend to be more lightfast.

    Coloured pencils vary enormously not only in quality and feel, but in the range of colours available. Before you buy any, try them out. We all have a different way of drawing, so what suits one person may not work at all for another.

    LIGHTFAST OR FUGITIVE?

    What do we mean by lightfast colours? When colours exposed to light over many years do not change much, if at all, then they are considered ‘lightfast’. However, exposure to light can alter some pigments over time and these colours are termed ‘fugitive’ because they fade, change colour or, occasionally, darken or become dull. How quickly colours deteriorate from their original, and over what period of time, determines the lightfast rating of a colour; that is, just how lightfast or fugitive the colour is.

    Although the pigments used in coloured pencils are often identical to those used in watercolour they can behave differently because of the oil or wax-based binder. Oil-based binders can make some pigments more lightfast than they are when used with water. Over the last few years a lot of work has been done to achieve an acceptable standard for measuring lightfastness in coloured pencils. Most of this work has been done in the USA, and the American Society for Testing Materials or ASTM accepted test for coloured pencils is ASTM C-6901. Coloured pencils complying with this standard are considered to be lightfast.

    TEST SWATCHES

    If you have a mixed range of pencils accumulated over many years, as many botanical artists have, it is a good idea to do your own lightfast testing. Make two identical colour swatches. Place one swatch under glass in full sun (the dashboard of a car is a good place or a greenhouse or south-facing window), and cover the remaining one and place it in a drawer away from any light. You can then compare the effects of light on the two after a few weeks, and sometimes, in strong, bright sunlight, a difference will show up in a matter of days.

    FABER-CASTELL POLYCHROMOS COLOURED PENCILS

    These are good quality, oil-based artists’ pencils with 3.8mm leads that hold a point well, an essential requirement for fine detailed work. They

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