Grey Scale Botanical Illustrations
We began this lesson by drawing a flower realistically, using seed and bulb catalog photos as reference. After students Sharpied over their finished drawing, I made a reduced or enlarged copy of it so they would have two sizes to work with. Using a light table, students traced a pleasing arrangement of their flowers onto a piece of Vellum Bristol paper, creating areas of overlap and balanced negative space. I encouraged the students to turn and/or flip their images to create a variety of views and positions. We used Prismacolor Brand “cool grey” grey-scale markers to outline all the flowers, paying special attention to the one or two large flower, adding a range of value, (lights and darks) to provide emphasis. A particular challenge for these 7th graders was trying to match the range of values they saw in their color photographs with what was available in the Grey Scale marker selection. How light of a grey would yellow be as opposed to green, for example? Finally, students chose one colored marker to fill in the areas of negative space and also had the option of using a metallic silver or gold pen for an extra “pop” of emphasis!
Ms. Amsler's Artroom 