Category: sketch

Raspberry sprig – light and shade study

I’ve been working on a drawing of a raspberry plant. It’s a cutting that I took from the bush in our side yard. I’m excited to be working from a live plant this time! It really does make all the difference.

I had started with a nice drawing and began inking and doing some colored pencil work, but it was looking rather flat. I realized that I needed to go back to some basics and do a light and shade study of the leaves in particular to get some depth and form back into the drawing.

So, this is the rough light and shade study on tracing paper that I will continue to tweak. I’ll use this as a reference point when redoing the original drawing so that my shading/light looks correct in colored pencil. Stay tuned for more progress!

Chive blossom sketch

Who knew chives could be so pretty? 🙂 Our neighbors have a bunch of chives in their flower bed and they have a beautiful, light purple flower. When you clip the stem off, you can clearly smell the oniony scent of chives.

The bloom consists of a cluster of small, individual blossoms that together look similar to a thistle. Lots of detail to draw each one, so I settled for a looser interpretation to get the idea across.

Rough sketch – daffodil blossom

This is a rough pen and ink and colored pencil sketch of a daffodil blossom. It was a freebie at the grocery store. They were clearing out flowers that were nearly wilted, so in addition to one for my 2-year-old to hold while we shopped, I asked for one for myself!

I could have been a little more delicate on the colored pencil application, but I just wanted to get some rough color laid down to get a sense of the blossom.

Lady Slipper Orchid – pen and ink, colored pencil

This is a lady slipper orchid that I saw at the Meijer Gardens Butterfly exhibit a few weeks ago. I did work from a photo since I didn’t have time to sketch while we were there. I loved the rounded and curled petals and leaves.

I started with just a rough sketch and then decided to go over it in pen and ink. I wanted to add some color since it included such a beautiful purple, so I went over everything with colored pencil. I used three colors in most areas, except for the green stems (just using two there.) It was a relatively quick drawing that I did last night, so I was pleased with how it turned out.

Pussy Willow Branch – colored pencil and pen and ink


In Eastern Rite churches, pussy willow branches are typically blessed and distributed with palm branches on Palm Sunday.

The pussy willow branch is both strong and woody, but with very delicate, fluffy blossoms. I first did this drawing in graphite pencil. Then I decided to do the line work in pen and ink, erase the pencil, and add some color with colored pencil. The branch has a bit more reddish in it than came through in this rendering, and the blossoms are quite silvery/white in the highlights.

I enjoyed the view of this particular branch as two of the blossoms still had the papery brown covering on the back, and one blossom at the bottom had fallen off, leaving a few wispy bits on the branch.