 |
| Pen and watercolour sketch of a flax flower, 1981 |
My first trip to New Zealand was in 1981. I met my husband there, so went back on a number of occasions to visit family, friends and of course the beautiful country itself. I was just back for my niece's wedding and, while I didn't get a chance to do much landscape or urban sketching, I did manage to pick up a couple of New Zealand flowers to draw.
I drew my first flax flower back on that first visit. I used a number of isograph pens - those rotten things that you spent more time cleaning and shaking to get them to work than actually drawing with - but they created wonderful even lines.
I have always enjoyed sketching, painting and drawing flowers as I can work from life. I'd love to do some more birds but they obviously move so I'd need to work from photos or in a museum :-(
 |
| Green flax flower sketch. Pencil and watercolour, Moleskine watercolour sketchbook A5 |
Flowers are a perfect subject. I work life sized where possible and they are generally botanically accurate. There were plenty of other coloured flax plants to choose from but I found three in my niece's garden and tackled them.
This one had quite soft colouring so I used pencil to draw it, then watercolour.
 |
| Red flax flower sketch. Pen and watercolour, Moleskine watercolour sketchbook A5 |
The red one reminded me of my first flax study. I used watercolour rather than pen to get the stem nice and dark.
The beatle was dead but I added him as well.
This one was very dark, so lent itself to more pen and ink drawing. I usually use an EF Sailor fountain pen for sketching fine detail, or a Pilot Falcon, with a waterproof Document Black ink. I still love linework, which is perhaps why I am so attracted to these and other rather 'aggressive' looking flowers.
I finished it off in the airport since I wouldn't have been able to fly the specimen into Australia.
 |
| Flax flower sketch. Pen and watercolour, Moleskine watercolour sketchbook A5 |
The last is a sketch of a flower from a Pohutukawa tree - wonderful trees with bright red flowers and deep leaves on the top side that are lighter underneath and almost seem to shimmer in the wind.
 |
| Pohutukawa flower sketch. Pencil and watercolour, Moleskine watercolour sketchbook A5 |
