Green Plant

"Green Plant", 15 Apr 2006. Watercolour & Indian Ink on sketch paper (low resolution scan 400 x 335 pixels).

Saturday morning. My wife and I were waiting for the contractor to install some roller blinds in the living room. We'd moved the furniture away from the installation area, which included some indoor plants. One particular pot caught my eye and I decided to do a sketch-colouring practice. I can't say my finished work was good, but neither was it bad. I got what I wanted, which was a quick practice on inking and minimal colouring).

How it was done:
#1 – Did a quick pencil sketch on sketch paper, and then started inking in Indian Ink (with calligraphy nib & pen).

#2 – After completing the inking, I started on the watercolour paints. The intent was to keep the painting simple, since I didn't do a detailed "Nature Study". It had been some time since I last used the watercolour paints — a relatively inexpensive Daler-Rowney 'Georgian' water colour palette set. Surprisingly, the paints were still as good as new (last time I used them was maybe two years ago!)

#3 – The main colours used were Hooker's Green (352), Lemon Yellow (651) and Yellow Ochre (663). For the darker areas, I re-used the dried-up Raw Umber (247) and Cobalt Blue (110) which were already on the palette (easily reused by applying water and letting the paints soak it up).

I applied the darker tone first…

… then overlaid it with lighter washes before finishing off with mid-tone washes. I was conscious not to overpaint (a bad habit of mine).

14 thoughts on “Green Plant”

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This was also my submission to ‘Inspire Me Thursday’ – http://inspiremethursday.blogspot.com/ – for their “Vernal Equinox Challenge” (i.e. Spring): http://tinyurl.com/jwl3h

It is beautiful! I love the negative spaces. And, I love your recipe for doing this as I also like to use pen and watercolor. I don’t see a lot of people doing that so am glad you did.

Beautiful! You did an excellent job on the tone and value in this piece. Great instructions also, I have never done watercolor, I am an acrylic, colored pencil, charcoal girl myself. I cant get control of the water! Anyway, beautiful piece! Brandi

That is gorgeous 🙂 Reminds me of the drawings of plants in botany books.

beautiful detail!

Amazing process! Beautiful painting!!

This turned out beautifully! I thoroughly enjoyed seeing your process…it was like watching the plant grow before my eyes! I know what you mean about overpainting…I do it too, and then i get mad at myself. You stopped at just the right time here:>

I loved this one. I have never used ink but would love to be able to put more detail into my botanical art. Can you suggest what kind of ink and pen that you use please? Do you also have a tutorial on how to start out with them?

Very much appreciated.

Hi Sabina, I’ve got a very simple setup. I use the traditional calligraphy nib and a bottle of Indian Ink. Just dip the calligraphy pen into the bottle and outline. I picked this up from reading a “how-to” book on creating comics. I don’t have a tutorial for this but I’ll give this some thought. Hope this helps.

Thank you once again. I have re-read you details and will get myself a calligraphy pen and a bottle of ink tomorrow when I go into town to a Botanical Art Exhibition.