The last echoes of summer – sketching dahlias and borage

Recently I’ve brought flowers home with me from my community garden, the last remnants of this summer. And what better way is there to celebrate these flowers than to sketch them. I found dahlias and borage, two very different but attractive plants, and so interesting to draw. These days, I find myself going back to the absolute basics: mechanical pencils in HB and 2B, a touch of watercolor here and there.

Usually this concentration on very few tools always happens when I go through my foundational drawing course live with a group of students – it’s great to use the same basic tools as everyone else (more info here: Sketching Fundamentals), or when a lot is going on in my life and I just need an uncomplicated setup.

When I created the study page in my sketchbook featuring these two beautiful flowers, I tried to show them from many different angles and explored them in detail – these study pages are an excellent way to really observe and get to know one particular subject. How I go about creating these study pages is a concept I show in detail in the course, too.

I knew I mainly wanted to explore these flowers with lines and marks, not in color, although I ended up adding a bit of watercolor, too. My first approach to add color to the sketches sort of failed, the red dahlias turned out muddy and dark because I didn’t leave any highlights. But then I was excited about the pink variety that seems to glow purple in the shadows, and has interesting muted green and yellows near the stalk.

And the borage really kept me fascinated for a long time. You know that feeling of getting lost in something, and losing time? I often enter this flow state when I’m drawing. I loved exploring the different shapes, overlapping stalks, the bristly texture, and the empty flowers with just a pencil.

I continued to draw some parts of the dahlia with the same approach. I feel like I’ve gotten a better understanding about both plants now, and I had a great time figuring out the many small shapes and the light and dark areas.