Rhododendrons, Before and After

Rhododendron x 'Neon'
Laura Allen, 2020

This was the last week of Cornell's advanced techniques class in botanical illustration, and for my final project I decided to revisit the rhododendron.

Earlier in the year I'd painted a spray of rhodie leaves using Rosie Sanders' video as a guide; while this class didn't really focus on watercolor per se, I wanted to see how much progress I'd made in general. It was an intensive few weeks, and I feel incremental improvements here and there.

Let's see.

The painting at the top is my final project. I found this gorgeous 5-gallon rhodie at my local nursery and bought it right up. The variety is 'Neon' and it claims to have peach-orange flowers; I won't know for another couple of weeks, but the buds are amazing.


Those buds are what I wanted to capture. They're so colorful and precise, slightly furry in spots and just gorgeous.


As usual, I started with very thorough drawing. I used Rosie Sanders' suggested blue/violet mix to paint in the areas around the highlights, and then worked in many, many layers of glazes.






Quinacridone gold is one of my absolute favorite colors, and I was able to really work it here. That, along with Venetian red and perylene scarlet (mixed with standard ultramarine and Hansa yellow,) is what makes up the majority of the oranges, rusts, and browns you see.













Here are a few more process shots. You can see the development of the underpainting, and visualize the layering on of glazes.

All in all, this painting makes me happy. There are spots, of course, that I don't like, but overall I think it's a success. I like the composition, the tonal range, and the color accuracy. My watercolor technique is getting better, so while I can totally point out the lapses and muddy spots, I'm still really pleased with the progress.

I'll do a post on the class itself some time next week, once I get everything wrapped up and submitted.


For now, here's the earlier rhododendron. I see definite improvement.

Rhododendron leaves painted earlier in 2020

"You're Such an Hermione"

According to my husband, I'm a bit of an Hermione. I know, I know...I'm a notorious know-it-all and I always do my homework, even the extra credit. If there's a question, my hand's the first in the air.

What can I say? I like classes. I like teaching classes, I like taking classes: it's basically all the same to me. So I'm really enjoying my first week of the online botanical illustration course through Cornell University's professional development department...so far, so good.





I'm taking the third and final class, Advanced Techniques, but of course we always start off with a few basics. Pencil gradation charts, negative space exercises, and colored pencil color wheels.



These two are my favorites. Number three above is a primary color wheel with experiments in mixing neutrals and adding shading. I used Prismacolor Warm Grey on the second wheel, and mixed complementary colors in the center.

Number four to the left is a wheel in what I'd call a minor key. (Not a primary person; I like the more complicated tones.) I mixed complementary colors in the center again, and the second wheel is a blend of the main hue with each of its neighbors.


These were good practice. Colored pencils aren't always easy to blend; I tried colorless blender, a blender pen from my Copic set, torts, stomp, and even white Prismacolor, all with mixed success.



I think I spent the most time on the wheels, but there's also this warm-up drawing in graphite. It was supposed to be a twenty-minute drawing; I spent a bit more time than that but tried not to get too fussy. Capturing the color variations on the skin of the squash was a challenge. Value changes and color mottling added together equals complexity (and fun) in rendering.

Cucurbita pepo var. turbinata
Acorn squash

 And one of the nicest and most unexpected helps of the first week? A writing assignment that will go a long way toward a future artist's statement. And that's no small thing, as anyone who's ever wrestled with artist statements knows.

"...One of the reasons I loved botanical science in the first place is the fascination I have for the specifics of plants. I love the differences between alternate and opposite leaves. I love the difference between the types of bark on trees. I love counting the number of petals, of stamens. I even love the names of things; I collect botanical names like a hoarder.

Every single plant- every leaf, stem, twig, bud, or seed- is utterly unique. There are no two alike, and that amazes me still. Why? Why is there all this incredible uniqueness? I feel that if I could figure out why this is so, I’d understand something really fundamental to the workings of the universe. As it is, it makes me happy to capture as much of that unique character as I can in a drawing or a painting. I want to make a record of just how beautiful even a leafcutter-riddled rhodie bough can be, with its life story written there in its color, its imperfections, its habits of growth...."

(I also wrote a bit about this on my other blog, The Packet Boat.I use that blog for less technical, more noodling sort of posts. For now.)

I'll be back next week with another update. Thanks for stopping in!