My Eyes

As much as I grouse about how poorly I see, I am feeling vastly superior to my camera phone this morning. I have been working on drawing a single iris flower last night and this morning. I remembered a small, handmade vase I can use to prop up a single large flower or several smaller flowers. Mostly, I just enjoy flowers out in my yard, due to El Destructo 1 (Chandler) and El Destructo 2 (Hammett).

The bearded irises in my yard are past their peak. I thought I would try to paint them this year, but was too busy cleaning up the gardens, an ongoing project. Rather than completely missing the opportunity, I brought one in last night to draw. I also drew it this morning before I started to work from home.

My camera phone simply cannot capture the depth and richness of the color. I tried with several different backgrounds in the house. Earlier in the week, I also have tried taking pictures of them in the yard at different times of the day. These irises are that deep, rich purple, which is a true purple but is more closely related to cobalt blue than the camera can pick up. Cobalt blue seems like it would be a third cousin to the color in the picture, but in life it's more of a first cousin. The phone sees the color with too much red in it. Also what I see in life, the form and structure of the flower has so much more depth, volume, and beauty than the camera captures.

Here's the best, quick picture I could take.

While my drawings were not blind contour, I consciously tried to look much, much more at the flower than at my paper. This flower made for very good practice, since there are a lot of edges which curl back onto themselves. I find this to be a particular challenge to process and draw correctly. This morning, I also tried to draw smaller. All of these fit onto a 10" x 10" page. Last night, I did a similar number of drawings, but used 3 sheets to do it. For me, it's not so much about burning through paper. I would like to have more control and I feel like I drawing from life in one size, large. I'd like to add medium to the mix.

Last night's and this morning's drawings felt really good. I got out of the word processing side of my brain. It also gave me a boost of self confidence, since my painting has currently plateaued and even taking a step backwards. Yesterday with two timed paintings of a lime, I could not get the lime, a spherical object, to have depth and volume to it.