July might be my favorite month of the year. I love going out on long summer days and seeing all the beetles, moths, ants and butterflies doing their thing on plants, whether it be in my vegetable garden or at a natural area. And so much is blooming this time of year, one doesn’t want to miss out on any of it.
During July, I found myself getting excited about doing single-line contour drawings in my nature journal. A single-line contour drawing means doing a drawing without lifting the pen.
Single-line contour drawings free me from the pressure of not making a mistake, simply because this method means that you are guaranteed to make a “mistake” and you won’t make a perfectly polished drawing.
The slow method of following every contour of my subject with the pen on my page means that I’m really seeing what I’m looking at. For botanical subjects, it means that I’m really getting to know the structure of the plant. The crawling line is an artifact of my discovery of the plant.
I feel like I see my “hand” in the single-line contour drawings and they feel like “me.” And it’s a nice counter-practice to my more laborious botanical compositions and studies in colored pencil, which can have me working on a single leaf for several hours.
I’ll work on each drawing for maybe 20 minutes in the field, using a size 1 Micron pen. I’ll jot down some notes about the plant to annotate my drawing – whether it has a fuzzy stem, rough leaves or anything else I observe about my subject. By working quickly, I’m able to study a few plants rather than doing a single plant portrait.
When I have time at my desk at home, I’ll add some watercolor wash to the page. Micron pens are waterproof so I don’t have to worry about smearing. I’ve been using Beam Paints watercolors, which have some opacity to them. I like this because I’m working in a sketchbook that doesn’t have heavy paper and will buckle with anything more than a light wash.
I also do what some folks call post-hoc nature journaling. I’ll do some research about the plant or insects I’ve observed and add that information to my sketchbook page. I’ll also write down questions that come up and make connections to my past observations and experiences. This has been a fun way to take a deeper dive into some of the plants that I’m getting to know through my drawing, and the insects that depend on and make use of them.
Experimenting with drawings filled with color on my iPad Pro.
I have also tried out taking a photo of my sketchbook pages and, using my Apple pencil with my iPad, doing single-line contour drawings of my single-line contour drawings in Adobe Fresco. This program allows users to add “live paint” that mimics traditional wet media. I’d like to experiment more with digital media and I like this relationship between my nature journaling and illustration – I don’t feel the pressure to make any “finished” work in my sketchbook but it informs other projects that I’m working on.
I hope that you’re getting out and getting to know the plants and wildlife around you, whether it be through nature journaling or other means. There’s a lot to see and celebrate on and off the page!