Drawing Tuesday - houseplants

Have a look at the simplicity of these plants, by American artist Lisa Barsumian. In this studio tour she shows her sketchbooks (starting just before the 12-minute mark).

The idea of doodling houseplants seems intriguing - this 13-minute video shows how to use pencil and fineliner to "draw a whole bunch of different houseplants" - sounds like fun! "Doodle" sounds less scary than "draw" and is good for general shapes, but it's also good to look really hard and draw what you see!

Use watercolour? or pastels? Draw with scissors, layer up the leaves? Go wild with colours?? Don't forget the pots the plants are in! 

Embroidered plants would be satisfying to draw, if they use stitches in an interesting way. Or - "draw with a needle" yourself?

From Richard - Enjoyed this and it involved unwrapping the last of the 24 half-pans in my Christmas present from Sue; cadmium orange! Adjusting ‘exposure’ has distorted the photo’s greens very slightly (or the sun went in again).

From Sue K - I got rather lost in the miasma of Aeonium leaves, sitting in our ‘unused' fireplace. Pastel on black again.

From Judith - Geranium and cotton

From Gill - I’m looking after this fern plant for friends and hope they return to UK before it may pass away! I used felt tip pens for a change.

From Ann - Rather a lot of green to contend with my plant but enjoyed the challenge!

From Mags - 5 minute sketch of a basil plant from Waitrose  (nearest I get to having  a house plant, never had any despite decades growing orchids from seed at Kew and writing a book about it)

From Joyce - My monoprint after watching Lisa Barsumian’s video. I used caligo safe wash relief printing ink on plexiglas and printed on copier paper by hand using a baren as I haven’t got a press. I used various implements to make marks and wipe the background which I meant to be more textured grey, too heavy handed!

From Janet K - Inspired by the Lisa Barsumian video this is my first attempt at mono printing.  I need to get some better paper for printing.

From me -  I too was inspired by Lisa's video, and got out various pens to try a pared-back line drawing. The subjects were a geranium and a jade plant, and the papers are brown bags painted with acrylic colours remaining at the end of a long-ago painting session.