From Botanical Drawings to Narrative Illustration

From Botanical Drawings to Narrative Illustration

“We have reached the end of the investigation, we are going to take all our findings and turn them into the final illustration. But first, I want to recap a bit the process that I followed. Choose the sketches with which you feel most comfortable, in my case I selected this one where there is a child hidden in the garden, this image resonated with a fragment of the poem.

I put it on a bedside table to see it better on the paper I have chosen, I usually work on cellulose papers, as they are the ones that best receive graphite without being damaged I only briefly review some details of the composition of the drawing, because I like not having total control over the final image and allowing mistakes. But, if you feel more comfortable going through the whole sketch it is also valid. I have a thousand ways of working, I don't like getting bored with what I do and changing techniques keeps me creative. Today I am going to use pencils and gouaches. With my sketch already outlined on the paper and my previously chosen color palette, I start without fear. I want to give prominence to the garden, so I want to give it as much light as possible and the explosion of my color palette. I reserve the pencil to work on my shy character at the end. I carefully apply layers of color with gouaches or watercolors, without saturating or losing the ease of what I want to express and leaving the character almost hidden, without much color behind the branches. I can also limit my palette and only use color to give strength to what is in the foreground and leave the rest to the pencil. Here there is complete freedom, the most important thing is to observe how after exploring digital image files it is possible to build narrative bridges between them and the text. It is interesting to note what resources I took from digital images to tell what I want to tell and how external sources help to get us out of common places. Once I have finished the two drawings, I make the accompanying text freehand so that we can later arrange it on a postcard, or publication on networks. Well, I'm very happy to have accompanied you here. Remember that I will be answering your questions, but please be patient if I do not do it immediately. Let's participate in the forum, it is great when we receive comments and contributions from our colleagues, it is easier when we all learn together. Don't forget to upload your final project, I can't wait to see it. See you soon! ”

Partial transcription of the video

“Final project We've reached the end of the course. Now, we'll go over the steps to create our final project. I'd like to see the development of your project. It's not only the end that's important. The path you followed and playing with science to do the illustration you've done is very important. The first step was collecting images. Building your image bank is key to develop your project. Hopefully it won't only be useful for this course, but for future projects too. Between digital images and what you record in your notebook you'll have plenty of inspiration. Then we read the text as man...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: From Botanical Drawings to Narrative Illustration

• Level: Beginner
• 98% positive reviews (133)
• 2511 students
• 4 units
• 13 lessons (1h 48m)
• 6 downloads

• Category

  Illustration

• Areas

  Botanical Illustration, Drawing, Narrative, Naturalistic Illustration, Traditional illustration