Assignment two, final piece

Yayy, finally I have completed this second part of the course, I finished my assignment piece!

It has been since June last year when I finished with all the projects exercises and left to do just the final assignment

piece which I just couldn’t find the time to do it! I was very pregnant then, working full time, 7 days a week, being really hot during the day,.. getting ready for the baby,..baby suppose to arrive 28 of October and according to my planning I was going to do it during the 4 weeks I was taking off before the arrival but, baby Zoe decided to arrive 3 weeks earlier! 🙂 Very thankful to my then tutor Minacha and my new tutor now, Hilary, for being supportive and flexible with my deadlines. 

For the assignment piece we were to select and draw natural objects, add a plant or vase of flowers in and put something contrasting in the background, jug or a bottle, the subject and media were our choise.

Bellow is the checklist I was using trying to do my best to show all of these in this final piece:

-an understanding of the use of colour in drawing

– an understanding of the most appropriate choice of medium for the subject and skill in using it 

-the ability to set up an interesting composition

-variety in mark-making, depth, contrast, tone

-accuracy and demonstrable understanding of form

During the exercises I did different regular fruit and vegetables, so for this drawing I decided to do exotic fruits, which I haven’t done. As we were to add plant or vase of flowers in the drawing, I didn’t want to use vase of flowers because I knew will take me few days to do the drawing and flowers wont last long, I had to do it around the baby and baby Zoe doesn’t sleep much during the day so I had to work night-time and mostly after 11 – 12 midnite, my husband is a musician so many nights after he was coming back from work and on the days he was off, I felt like Van Gogh’s owl 🙂 The plants I have in my house are all big pots, I set my self to work in my little studio, because off all these, I thought to choose pineapple as one of the fruit, had interesting texture and leaves like I plant. I also had chosen, coconut, lotus fruits and papaya, which I decided to take out from the composition later on, you will see in my compositional studies in my sketchbook. As a bottle I used Meteus, Portuguese rose, which has interesting shape. I placed my objects on wrinkled table-cloth, I was looking almost straight and slightly down and had strong light on the right of the composition.

I knew will work on this project for few days but didn’t expect it to work for much longer, took me just over two weeks to complete it, working on and off,  sometimes having few days pause. I didn’t expect to be like this but having a newborn I found it difficult with the time, no time for anything else but the baby. I also thought by choosing pineapple and coconut , these fruit last longer, actually not that long. Especially the coconut when is cut open only lasts for about 3 days. You will see that I had to replace the coconut twice and the pineapple once, lotus fruit lasted.

I played first placing the objects in different compositions and then started doing some sketches in my sketchbook. Bellow is a pic of the first sketch where I had chosen the pineapple, papaya, the coconut I had it broken in half to make my composition more interesting plus was getting other forms to describe and the inside texture aswell, and I placed the bottle at the back. I decided to eliminate the lotus fruits was getting to busy. Please see this composition bellow.

I did not like this composition, it didn’t fit well on the page and I was also thinking about when doing the colours on the papaya and pineapple, lots of the greens were going to be similar. I did like having cut off the picture plane though, as was also mentioned in the course book as an idea.

Bellow is the second sketch I did, to use the paper vertical, you can see I took out the papaya and added the two lotus fruits here instead.

Here is when I decided that for the objects I have chosen to draw, vertical will be better to use the paper. To make it more interesting I cropped my view with a box on the left, in front of the pineapple, that’s why you don’t see it all. but I was still not happy with my composition, my bottle didn’t fit well here, want to see it all, had to do more adjustments, my proportions were wrong here as well. I thought the pineapple to bring bit lower, and move the lotus fruits a bit to fill in the space down bit more.

I later did two more compositional studies where I did some changes moving the lotus fruits and the coconut a bit, I also tried by facing the bottle looking more to the left on the second composition. Please see picture bellow.

As you see on my notes, I was more drown to the left composition.

After this I had 3 days pause and when I came back I saw the coconut was all gone mouldy inside so I had to replace it with new one. This time it broke the other way so the two bits were more roundly, I liked it this way broken. I decided to go with the third composition which is the left on the picture above, I replaced the coconut pieces, moved the bottle looking to the right but kept the lotus fruits more like the last composition, they were filling in the space now better, was also deciding on cropping a bit one of the lotus fruit aswell in my drawing.

In my sketchbook you will see I did some pencil line and tone studies first of the objects, I found the pineapple was most challenging to describe, here is when I thought by doing first diagonal lines to find easier each bit of the texture ( please see pic bellow to see what I mean ). In my notes here I say: Pineapple, challenging texture, each bit is rising up so have to describe tones carefully, darkest bits are the inside joining lines which makes depth. Please see pic bellow of these studies.

I then decided to do preliminary drawing first by using graphite pencils on A4 cartridge paper. I used b3, b4, b5, b7, b8, and b9 pencil. For the bottle I used pencils and medium charcoal pencil, for blending I used paper stumps, for highlights kneaded gum. I first started with the pineapple, please see picture bellow.

I started from the bottom doing mid tones first and gradually building the tones. Bellow picture is of finished fruits, bottle and their cast shadows.

Bellow is day light picture of finished drawing.

I think I did ok using pencils describing the different textures, depth, contrast and forms. The left side on the bottle puts me a bit of, curve should come down bit lower, smooth texture came out good. I am also happy with the coconut and lotus textures and tone. With the pineapple I should have done better with the highlights on some bits, overall I think I managed to describe the rough texture well. I then had another pause and when I came back the coconut was gone all mouldy inside and had to replace it again. These time I decided to keep it close till I am ready to start with the final drawing.

For my final piece I decided to use coloured pencils because they would be best to describe the pineapple texture as well as the coconut.  I knew was going to be time-consuming, I really enjoyed using them drawing the roses in one of the previous exercise. I used soft prisma coloured pencils.

I first did some colour studies in my sketchbook. Please see pictures bellow to see the colours and techniques I choose to use for the pineapple and lotus fruit.

I found it difficult to do white over dark colour, to describe highlight on the coconut, I found that if I put with little pressure white first and then going over with darker colour there where the white is darker colour doesn’t show well so this I used later in my final drawing, there where highlights are and then continued with colouring rest. I used lighter colour with little pressure over darker when blending, for example here you can see that good on the lotus fruit. I also made comment here to describe dark tones first. For the pineapple I used quite lot of colours and gradually building the tone, blending, then doing some more lines etc..

I then did some colour studies for the coconut. I tried experimenting with other media here, first sample I used coloured pencils and conte crayons first, then on top i did lines with acid free marker, then went over did some lines with oil pastels ( brown and light brown ) and again over with pencils, marker… Second sample, I used conte crayons which I didn’t like thinking how would look with the rest of the coloured pencil drawing. I wasn’t really happy with both of these studies. I tried to use other media because I found it difficult doing lighter tones over darker with coloured pencils. Please see pic bellow.

Next picture bellow is from the bottle colour study and coconut leaves. Few colours I choose to use for the bottle and leaves as well, describing the dark tones first gradually building the colours and blending with lighter colours. Please see picture bellow.

By the time I finished with the studies and one day pause, I wasn’t happy with the look of the pineapple, went all brown, so I went and bought a new one. Was difficult to choose, in the local supermarket most they had there were gone all brown aswell, there was one which I choose that had more yellows than the previous one I had and was quite interesting, same range of colours as my previous just more yellows in places.

My final piece I did on A3 size cartridge paper. I replaced the pineapple, broke and replaced the new coconut, tried breaking it the same as the previous one so I get more round bits, decide to fit in both lotus fruits, smoothed a bit the table-cloth in some places I also happen to have some paper under it you can notice more now, the way sits one of the lotus, the top one, thought was interesting.

First I did light sketch and started adding colour on the pineapple first. Please see the two pictures bellow.

Pineapple took quite few hours to finish, was working on it two nights. For the highlights I did as I tried in the studies doing white first with little pressure where highlights are and then adding rest of the colors building the tones. Picture bellow is from the second night right after I finished it, you can also see a bit from the pineapple here, I think I did quite well by choosing the right colours for it.

I was quite worried about the coconut as I wasn’t happy with my studies. After the colour studies I decided to stick with using only coloured pencils for it and after I done the pineapple, the idea of doing white first on the highlights areas and then other colours around, I thought to do this here with lighter colours first, adding with little pressure so when I went over with darker didn’t colour over well or I was also avoiding or applying lightly other colour on those areas. Two pics bellow are stages of doing the coconut.

Next picture bellow is finished coconut. I was basically experimenting here and I am actually quite happy how it turned out.

Next two pics are stages doing the lotus fruit. You can see how I first start hatching lightly the dark tones first and slowly building the colour by layering over and over and blending with lighter colour and white at the end to give that glossy shiny feel. For the highlights I did same as on the pineapple, doing white first.

2 pics bellow are stages of working on the bottle and also started working on the cast shadows and table-cloth.

You can see here for the bottle I started doing the dark tones first and white on the highlights and gradually building the tones by applying many layers of colours. After quite lot of layers of colours, for blending on top I used a colourless pencil with a bit of pressure. I am happy how it turned out, and the shape of the bottle came out much better then on my preliminary drawing, please see picture bellow of finished bottle.

For the darkest bits on the bottle and also some bits on the pineapple leaves with the dark brown I also used indigo blue.

The table-cloth is deep red colour, when I started doing it, after the first layer of colour I didn’t like how was looking. After deepening the colour, doing the shadows and cast shadows, doing the background in light creamy-beigey colour I actually quite like it now, it gives me that vantage yellow, warm look.  Please see picture bellow of finished piece.

Overall I am happy with my final drawing. I think is improvement from my preliminary drawing. I think I used the pencils well, described textures with different mark making and techniques, shown depth, contrast and tone well. I was constantly measuring the objects with my pencil and comparing sizes, looking at the negative space, objects sizes and shapes came out good. I think I have interesting composition.

It has been challenging and time-consuming piece but well worth it! Looking forward to read my tutor’s report, comments and advice.

Check and log

– What were the main challenges of drawing animals?

The main challenges of drawing animal were getting the balance between the animal’s anatomy and describing their texture, fur.

– Which media did you enjoy using most and which did you feel were best for the subject matter and why?

I actually really enjoyed using charcoal sticks and charcoal pencils drawing my cat in the ‘Exercise Grabbing the chance’ and also liked using pastel pencils doing the two sketches of my cat in my sketchbook, too. I think these two medias were great for doing Karma, they were excellent for describing her furry textured coat.

– Where can you go to draw more animals? Think about the sorts of places that will give you opportunities for animal drawing. Have you tried drawing a moving animal yet?

Place that will give me the opportunity to draw all different animals here near where I live will be Paphos Zoo, must be in the autumn and winter though as way to hot now! In a mean time will practise drawing my friends and neighbours pets. I actually did try in my sketchbook ‘Excercise Grabbing the chance’, some quick sketches while my cat was moving, it was definitely very challenging, some of the sketches are not that great, I did do couple of sketches as the exercise mentioned to come back and forth to draw when the animal was in the same position.

Exercise Fish on a plate

For this exercise we had to draw a fish placed on a decorative plate using water-soluble pencils or a mix of coloured pencils and inks. I used water-soluble pencils and A3 size heavy weight acid free paper, the fish I choose to draw is called ‘tsipoura’. It took me 2 days to complete this exercise and the third day I still did few adjustments in the colours and shades. I was standing when drawing so I was looking down at the fish and strong light source was coming from the right corner. It was interesting to describe the texture on the fish, all the marks, different from the previous exercise drawing the fur on the cat, challenging exercise.

I first did little experiment in my sketchbook, trying few colours, please see picture bellow.

Then I lightly drew the fish on the plate with 3B pencil and started adding and building the colours, please see pictures bellow, on the second one I went over with wet brush to see the effect and colour depth.

  

I was particularly careful on the light how it catches on the fish’s eye, mouth, gills, body and tail. As you can see in the pictures bellow, I added quite few colours and many layers of it to describe as close as I was seeing the fish’s body and texture. I went over with wet brush and then added some textures with grey and black pencil on top. For the fish and plate’s cast shadows I used brown and blue and went over with wet brush.  On the plate I done the shading with hatching and I didn’t go over with wet brush, I liked the effect like that. Please see picture bellow.

First I was gonna leave the drawing with the white background but looking at it later on I decided to add background colour and did some grey. Please see picture bellow of finished drawing.

In general I think I did good job describing the fish using water-soluble pencils for the first time, I don’t know if it’s because of the brand of pencils I used ( Derwent ) but I did realise that after many layers of colour you can’t add any more on top. Bellow is close up picture of the final drawing.

Research point, Anatomical drawings of George Stubbs

George Stubbs was both scientist and artist. Stubbs’s contribution through the Anatomy of the Horse was an important piece of research and was vital to the understanding of the structure of the horse.  The knowledge of  skeletal and muscle placing defines the shape of the horse. In an isolated Lincolnshire farmhouse, he dissected the horse himself, as he stripped away the muscles, he made detailed drawings of what he saw. 

All these studies they really helped him later in his finished paintings to produce the most amazing works, capturing every single bit of muscle and the tendons portrayed so perfectly. We can see this in his famous painting from 1762 Wistlejacket, picture bellow.

Exercise Grabbing the chance

For this exercise we had to do quick sketches of animal when the animal is settled in good position. Model for this exercise was Karma, my Cypriot sphinx 🙂

It was challenging exercise this for me, I haven’t really drawn animals before, especially live drawing them. My cat is a very snobbish and fussy one, she knew I was doing something when sketching her and all the time was moving! Some of the sketches I did I started, stopped, and came back to do again when Karma was in same or similar position. Most of the sketches I did are live ones, few are quick sketches from photos, will mention later. First sketches I did are with 4B pencil. Been working for 3 days on this exercise, bellow are my first live sketches from day one, please see pics bellow.

It was getting really hot outside and Karma was hiding behind the green fence in the garden so I decided to go inside, print out few photos of her and do some sketches looking at them. This time I wanted to do more of her face and try capture her character, please see picture bellow.

The second day I did some more live sketches using 4B pencil first and then few sketches with artline fine black pen 0.3, please see pics bellow.

The third day I did couple more drawings looking at photos, decided to use pastel pencils and this time try to capture more the essence of the animal’s pose and texture, which I think I have achieved here, please see the picture bellow. I used 4 main colours: very light brown, dark brown, grey and black for Karma’s coat.

 

For the last part of the exercise we had to do final drawing on bigger piece of paper and draw the animal with media of our choise. I did my drawing on A3 size cartridge paper and I used charcoal sticks and pencils and white pastel pencil for the whiskers and white hairs, blending with paper stump. I first very lightly drew my cat with 4B pencil and started doing her had using charcoal stick and charcoal pencils, please see picture bellow.

 

Picture bellow is while doing her coat.

 

You can see how gradually I was building the colour doing the mid tone and adding more colour where it needed and lightening areas with the kneaded eraser. Bellow is the picture of finished Karma.

 

In the beginning I wasn’t sure what to do with the background, Karma was in the garden here leaning on a short plants fence , I am running late with my assignment, I spent quite lot of time on details here, really tried to capture the texture and also her look and character, decided not to do as the garden but instead to add more plain background so I hurry up a bit. I am happy with my final results and I also really enjoyed doing this exercise, I will for sure do more animal drawings in the future. Bellow is a picture of the final drawing.

Research point, Leonardo and Dürer depicted animals

For this research point we were asked find and look at some images of drawings by Renaissance masters such as Leonardo and Dürer and how they depicted animals.

Leonardo Da Vinci combined science and art in a number of his works and studies. This combination of science and art is very evident in the depiction of animals in his works.

Leonardo made many studies of animals, with cats, dogs, and horses as frequent subjects. Above is one of his horse studies that I really like. It is a sketchy drawing where we see more than one line outlining the horse, few soft lines giving the feeling of movement in the legs on the top image, also around the mouth of the horse. He does hatching for the tone and the curved forms around the muscles and the bones.

In the above pen and ink study of a crab by Da Vinci, I love how he described the face on the top image, you can really tell that he studied the animal characteristics as well when drawing them. Again here we can see hatching for the tone, the light comes from the left corner, also he does hatching for all the uneven, bumpy bits on the crab and contour lines.

In the above sketch of a Roaring Lion by Da Vinci, here we can see so much energy in this quick drawing, the lion is in a movement, lot more attention on the face characteristic expression then the body which he described with soft freely lines. Again we see hatching for the tone, on the neck suggesting curved neck, and the hatching is in one direction, this is what indicates the movement in this drawing.

‘ A Young Hare’ is Dürer’s most popular image ( picture above ) and certainly his most commercial today. There is so much detail, the form and fur is all so perfect in this piece. To begin the work, Dürer lightly sketched the image and underpainted it with some washes of brown watercolor. Then he patiently built up the texture of the fur with a variety of dark and light brushstrokes in both watercolor and gouache. The painting is brought to completion with the addition of a few refined details such as the whiskers and the meticulous reflection in the creature’s eye.

In the above drawing,  ‘ Walrus’, Dürer he sketched the image first, then he underpainted it with different shades of brown watercolour describing tone, then went over with pen indicating all the hairs, their direction and following the contour lines,  different lengths and density in places for the tone.

Dürer was fascinated by nature as he believed that the study of the natural world could reveal the fundamental truths he was seeking to discover through his art. Really like what he wrote:

“Nature holds the beautiful, for the artist who has the insight to extract it. Thus, beauty lies even in humble, perhaps ugly things, and the ideal, which bypasses or improves on nature, may not be truly beautiful in the end.”

Check and log

– How will your experiments with negative space help your observational drawing in the future?

Doing the negative space exercise is already helping me a lot with my new drawings. Constant looking at the negative space definitely makes my drawings with better shapes and space, makes my drawing more accurate.

– What techniques did you use to ensure you drew your plants in proportion?

Apart from looking at the negative space, I was constantly checking and comparing the sizes between the leaves and the flowers, how the plant is constructed, sometimes used my pencil to measure the sizes of the flowers, I would also move back sometimes to see the drawing.

– How did you achieve and effect of three-dimensional space in your drawings?

Overlapping flowers and leaves, difference in scale between flowers closer to us and further away, indicating tone, shading, doing details,..these all helped to achieve three-dimensional space in my drawings.

Exercise Drawing with other colour media

For this exercise we had to make drawings of the same subject as before ( flowers or plant ) but in other colour media, experiment with mixing the media. I did two experimental drawings, both in my A4 size sketchbook. Picture bellow is from the flowers I used to draw, I liked it because in the pot are two different coloured flowers, red-orange ones and pinky-purple ones. Instead of drawing the whole pot , I decided to draw bits of it, concentrating more on the flowers.

For my first drawing I decided to use wax crayons and felt tips together. I drew  very lightly the drawing with 2B pencil and started adding the dark bits first with brown wax crayon and blue, then red, orange and white on the flowers, while adding the colours with wax crayons I was using felt tips in same colours over the wax crayons, first light colours then the blue and brown and blending the colour with my finger. Please see picture bellow of drawing.

Wax crayons are not good for details, as you can see I also outlined the flowers and greens separations with felt tips. I also think they would be better if working on bigger size paper, I much prefer oil pastels though and if the paper has more tooth . Felt tip colour blended on top of wax crayon with my finger worked well especially the light colours, the blue colour I found made little mess, but also I think because my finger was getting quite dirty, also drawing lines on top of the wax crayon with felt tip doesn’t work well, you can see it in the drawing.

For the second drawing I decided to move the plant and draw other bits of it. For this drawing I used coloured pencils and mitsubishi uni -ball pens. The picture bellow is of the drawing.

I drew the drawing first lightly with 2B pencil and started adding the colours in the flowers first with layering lightly with coloured pencils, first the dark bits with brown and blue and more layers of red, then orange in some areas ( for the red flowers ) then went over with the uni-ball pens ( red, orange and blue ) for some texture and depth. In some places I went over the pens again with red and orange coloured pencils. For the pinkish flower I did same but used 2 different pinks and purple instead the red and orange before and pink, blue and purple uni-ball pens. For the leaves I used brown coloured pencil for the dark bits and 3 different greens, with 2 different uni-ball pens on top, doing each leave or sets of leaved individually. I much prefer this experiment mixing different media, I think coloured pencils and uni-ball pens work really well together.

Changing the medium, especially mixing mediums together, makes me draw more freely and expressively and the outcome is surprising.

Exercise Plants and flowers in coloured pencil

For this exercise first we had to experiment different methods of blending the colours in our sketchbook and for the second part we had to make a drawing of flowers or plants using coloured pencils. It took me two and a half days to complete this exercise, building the colours on the flowers with coloured pencils was very time consuming. Bellow is a picture of few blending experiments I did in my sketchbook.

I did hatching with three colours by using light pressure, from light to dark; Blending four colours, layering the colours lightly and then with harder pressure blending over by using light colour; Layering brown and two different red colours together and blending them with a stump; Blending with colourless pencil; Hatching with only one colour and when going over with pressure gives nice velvety smooth feel; Tried blending colours with my finger which I didn’t like it; Looked online at some tutorials and saw blending coloured pencils with cotton bud dipped in baby oil, I didn’t have baby oil so I tried with face moisturizer blending two colours and the effect came out quite nice, looks like oil pastel effect; You can also make marks using the tip of the pencil over colour, which is great for details.

Roses are so beautiful now in Cyprus, so for my drawing I went around the neighborhood and collected few in different colours. I know the exercise also mentioned not to draw in isolation, this past week my house is full with family staying with us so I didn’t want to be disturbed drawing by placing the vase with flowers somewhere in the kitchen or living room, I had to do my drawing in my little studio, but I really tried to focus on the flowers and do the best to describe the colour vegetation by layering over and over colours.

From the collection of roses I had I decided to draw 4 roses with different colours, 2 deep red ones, 1 off white and 1 pink one, inside a vase on a desk and white background. I did my drawing on A2 size white cartridge paper and used prismacolour coloured pencils. Before I started drawing, I played with different arrangements, took my time observing and studying the roses and also looked at some tutorials online about drawing flowers in coloured pencils. As I didn’t have busy background, I decided to try to fill most of the page with the flowers. My cousin was around me and taking lots of pics, while drawing and will be writing and uploading them here as steps of progression. First I drew very lightly my arrangement with 3B pencli, constantly looking at the negative space between the flowers, leaves, soon I was happy with the drawing I started with the left red flower, please see pic bellow.

Because the flowers I had collected were from two days before, and these roses don’t last very long, the pink rose was quite opened, so by the time I finished drawing the red rose and few leaves, the pink rose was dying ( you van see on the top photo ). Lucky from the good flowers observation I did before drawing, later on I managed to finish it and happy how it turned out, please see picture bellow. My cousin told me to add sugar into the water for the flowers to last longer and they did!

For the red rose, I outlined it with brown colour first then I did all the dark bits lightly with hatching brown and somewhere also blue colour, then I used 3 different shades of red, little bit of orange, applying the colours with very light pressure over and over, blending with lighter colour on top and little white on the highlights. For the pink flower, I used few colours grading from light and medium peach, few different pinks, yellow and little light orange, all layered lightly over and over. First doing the darker bits, and blending top with lightest colour as well as white for the highlights. After I finished with the pink rose, I outlined the rest of the roses brown colour and finished drawing the stems and leaves, please see the picture bellow.

For the stems and leaves I used 3 different shades of greens, yellow, 3 different browns and 3 different yellow- beige shades. They also took me quite a while to do, I really tried to focus and describe best I can how the flowers are constructed, how the leaves are attached, look at the shadows, making the flowers look three-dimensional. Later on I moved to do the off white rose again doing the dark bits first by hatching brown ( lighter shade that I used for the red rose ) and over it different shades of cream and beige colour, little yellow also in places and little lime in some bits closer to the stem, layering the colours over and over, blending with the lighter colour and white for the highlights, please see picture bellow.

The last rose was little deeper red, I did same as on the first rose but adding more brown and blue, please see pictures bellow.

It has been time consuming exercise, I didn’t realize will take this long, I also didn’t want to rush it, I really enjoyed working with coloured pencils and wanted to do best I can. I am a bit worried now to finish the rest of the exercises on time, my assignment deadline is really close, might need to ask my tutor for few more days extension.

I am very happy with my final results, I think I did a good job with flowers describing them pretty accurate, the only thing now looking at the drawing I am not so happy with the vase, the ellipse is a bit wrong. Please see picture bellow of final drawing.

I have spent so much effort on the flowers, shame I didn’t notice the vase earlier, I was so focusing on the flowers, looking at vase now really puts me off! Bellow is another photo of the final drawing that I have cropped the vase a bit so you don’t see it much and looks better 🙂

Project Drawing plants and flowers; Exercise Negative space in a plant

For this exercise we had to use a large plant, set it in front of us and draw the negative space, which means concentrating only on the space between the stalk and leaves and the space around the plant. For my drawing I used an A3 size paper and 2B pencil, later I filled in the negative space with 9B pencil to get that greater dark.

I stared from the top by outlining the top leaves, then I started by doing the spaces between the leaves on the right side of the plant first and down right, then I went up again starting on the left side spaces between the leaves and stalk going down. I had to stop few times and check the proportions and scale, also correcting lines and spaces. It was a bit tiring exercise on my eyes, trying to concentrate on the spaces between the leaves and stalks, but not to draw the plant, it took me just over two hours to finish. Looking at the plant and my drawing, I am happy with my results, the drawing looks pretty accurate. The plant as you can see has two stalks, the left one is taller and on the right is shorter one with not many leaves on. When I draw I always look at the negative space, the space between the objects and this has been excellent exercise  focusing on line, shape and space.