‘Plant’ing Daily Drawings

For this learning project piece I wanted to focus on drawing plants. I love plants as they bring me serenity, relaxation and enjoyment, so I thought what better then attempt learning to draw some. I started by just drawing one simple plant, when I finished it I wanted to continue drawing different ones as I really enjoyed the time I spent drawing the first one. However, I did not have time to draw another one that day due to my busy schedule. That is when I thought of the idea to draw a plant each day I had time to; this worked especially well since we got two weeks to work on this post.

The picture below is of all the daily plants I drew over the two weeks. It was very interesting to draw the different style of plants to see how many drawing aspects were the same or different across the wide range that I drew. I was very happy with how all of these plants turned out. I would just google pictures of plants on google images with my computer and then I would use that as reference while I drew on my Ipad. It was similar to the tracing style that I learned and discussed in previous posts, except it gave more room for creativity and had more satisfaction when finished. I think it was more satisfying then the tracing images I did even though those ones turned out very nice is simply because it was something I did entirely on my own.

Looking back at the final product, I am so proud of how well all the plants turned out considering I do not have a whole lot experience drawing with ProCreate and even less with plants. However, the following three photos are my favourites my top three out of them all. I really like the cactus because I had a lot of fun drawing it while playing around with different shades and blending. This drawing really got me using my creative side and how I could add more detail to make it less cartoonish and more realistic looking. My second favourite, was day six as this day I wasn’t sure which plant I wanted to draw so I just tried to draw my roommates plant and everyone I asked said they could tell which was very rewarding. Finally, my third favourite was day eight where I drew another tree. Although this one may not look as great as some of the other ones, the process of drawing this one is what got it into the top 3. When starting to draw this days drawing it began as a type of bush, however once I finished it, I did not like the final product so I tried turning it upside down and it inspired me to turn it into a tree. I then wanted to spice it up a bit so I added some red berries for a more interesting drawing. What do you think about my top three? What are your top three favourites and why? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments, I would love to hear your feedback!

 

Finally, I will touch on the three big takeaways I learned from drawing on my Ipad with ProCreate from my plant drawings. I mentioned this above, about how I was able to get creative with shading and blending. I found that this was a great tool to make drawings more fun and better looking. This goes with another item I learned which was using different shades of a colour rather than just one solid shade. In all of my drawings of plants there are at least 2 or more shades of a colour to add detail. The cactus drawing really shows how nicer it looks when adding a couple more shades of green than just one. I also learned how helpful layers are. Using multiple layers allows you to add details with out backtracking; a simple example of this is that depending on what order your layers are in it will affect what you can see. Looking at the finished product I was very proud of what I accomplished as I was able to draw all of these plants on my own without resorting to a tutorial, where when I first started this project I wouldn’t have attempted to draw anything without a tutorial.