Garden in Camarillo, CA.
Gardens are wonderful environments in which to draw. With many picturesque angles and varieties of foliage, one can create a beautiful life drawing. Throughout the history of art, there has always been a fascination with the garden, where there is life and tranquility. Gardens are even known for healing the mind, body and soul. Capturing all of this in a drawing allows you to take the same feeling home and enjoy it whenever you want. This article is for the artist, beginning or seasoned, who wants to learn draw a garden.
Instructions
Start with something to build on.
1. Pick the perfect spot. You want to find a spot that has great lighting and a good composition. It is helpful to have an index card with a rectangle cut out of the middle with which to find a great spot. Use it as you would the viewfinder of a camera. Have a seat and get your tools (pen or pencil) out!
2. Look at the garden as a whole. First keep in mind the perspective of the place. When you are in a room, it's easier to do this than when you are outside, where there are no walls. Think of the section of the garden that you are drawing as a room and create a proportional space on the page. Now look at everything in the garden as large shapes with smaller shapes within. Lightly sketch out the shapes until you have a drawing that looks like the beginning stages of a clay-model version of the garden.
3. Take the lighting into account. This is going to help your drawing's dimension. Before any details are put into your garden, look at the garden as a whole again, but this time focus on light and dark. Squint your eyes to get an even better idea of what is light and what is dark. Shade in the shadow lightly onto your preliminary sketch, including middleground and highlights. Using only these three shades in the beginning will help keep things simple. You will be able to fill in between shades later. Cross-hatching is great for creating shadows and middle tones.
4. Now start drawing in things like branches, paths and negative spaces. This will be the skeleton sketch on which you can put your details.
Details!
5. Now that you have your preliminary sketch done, just start sketching in details as you would any other drawing. Starting from bigger details to the smaller details is the way to keep it simple for yourself.
6. Look at the lighting one more time. Did your lighting come through as well as it did in the beginning? If not, create more contrast by darkening shadows and midtones, and even the light areas. The image should have as much presence as the actual place as possible.
7. Remaining details. You can also add things from your own imagination if you feel confident. You can add logical things such as pots or extra plants or fantasy creatures such as fairies or gnomes. Remember this is not your garden, but it is YOUR drawing! You have complete freedom with what you do with it!
Claiming Your Drawing
8. Don't forget to add information (either on the front or the back of the page) that records the date, possibly the time because of the day lighting, where this garden is, even specifics of where you are sitting and, of course, your signature!
9. Look over the garden and your drawing one more time, in case there is something you missed.
10. You are done! Go show the world!
