Geraniums 3 ways and a candelabra times 4

Dear Sarah--Day 316 of our daily drawing exchange

Hi Nikki-

Today is my afternoon with the kids, so I’m posting early again. My ivy geraniums are still blooming on my deck, so a cut one small branch and brought it inside. First up—a detailed pencil drawing (haven’t done one of those in a while), followed by an ink brush sketch and finally a dip pen sketch, where I dispensed with the vase altogether. There are certain parts of each one that I like a lot, and I like the two ink sketches better than the pencil drawing. However, doing all the detail on the pencil sketch laid a foundation for the other two. My brain (and hand) understood the shapes already, so I could be more free with the ink sketches. I do love the brush pen—the dip pen is much more exacting.

XO S

Hi Sarah -

Inspired by your three ways of drawing geraniums (geraniae?), I decided to do a similar thing using a candelabra (but on the iPad). First up, the blind contour. I knew immediately that I had chosen an obnoxious subject full of weird details and strange curves foreshortening and receding and making my head hurt.

Sketch two was done with the Procreate pencil while looking at the many-armed monster.

Third version used a very black inky pen.

And the final one used a more brushy brush from a gouache set and leaned heavily on photo reference (also done very quickly with a large brush size so there was no way I would be tempted to capture details). Using the image as my starting point in Procreate is the best way to get the general proportions more or less correct - note that the final one was the only version where I managed to fit the whole thing in.

Much as I found this difficult, I did appreciate what a marvelous object this is, one I should probably draw on a regular basis.

Thanks for the inspiration!
Nikki