Anthropomorphized Flowers
The idea to make these flower people came originally to me when I was taking a figure drawing class for College (I have a bachelors in Art Education). Each week we drew in class and we also had a homework assignment to be critiqued at a later time. I believe that the theme for this assignment was cross contour hatching*.
Anyway, back to my thoughts, I am not entirely sure what caused me to throw plant anatomy into the mix, It might have been just that I get bored easily and wanted to draw something other than human anatomy in my figure class, but I wanted to make my final result look a something like one of Da Vinci's notebook pages, With scrawled notes surrounding my figures. I liked how it turned out, but then I moved on as the assignments changed and I continued to follow the prompts but throw in a little twist of m own.
Fast forward several years, past graduation and a move from Southern Arizona to the middle of Utah and the native vegetation was a huge difference in my surroundings. I'm far from a plant expert, but I could name half a dozen Cacti, and other vegetation on a hike through the Sonoran desert.
I could even tell if the area has gotten any rain recently by the plumpness of a prickly pear leaf, but I didn't know about annuals vs. perennials. I love plants, but in Arizona the most successful gardening I had done was to weed the rock garden and relocate some barrel cactus. I want flowers in my garden, but I didn't know where to start!
October rolled around and I decided to participate in the Inktober challenge. I didn't get 31 days of drawings, but I got a start on plant research, and this series of drawings. I took each prompt, and tried to find a plant that could in some way go with that prompt. You can see more about this on my Instagram @fishoftheflock . I ended up with a few figures with floral features. Each plant was a springboard for research. On each of the finished drawings you can see notes that I wrote based on what I could learn about the plants I drew.
I learned a little about where in the world the plant is from originally, what kind of conditions the plant likes to grow in such as how much sun it likes to get, and the life cycle of the plant, how it reproduces, etc.
I have decided that I like bulbs because most of them self-propagate and are fairly low maintenance, and their flowers are gorgeous! Also with all the text on these pieces, I decided to sign my name in different places on each page, tucked in with the notes.
If you want to see me anthropomorphize your favorite flower, let me know in the comments, and if you are interested in buying a print of one of these drawings you can go to my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/shop/FishOfTheFlock?ref=search_shop_redirect
Detail from assignment mentioned above.
I believe at this time I had recently read a biography of Leonardo Da Vinci and I loved the sketches from this notebooks, which are actually really remarkable. I read a little bit of what he had written (that someone was able to decipher) and what he concluded based on observation alone was awesome.*cross contour are lines that follow the shape of an object or figure through the outline of an object, and hatching is a method of adding value or shading through the use of lines.
Anyway, back to my thoughts, I am not entirely sure what caused me to throw plant anatomy into the mix, It might have been just that I get bored easily and wanted to draw something other than human anatomy in my figure class, but I wanted to make my final result look a something like one of Da Vinci's notebook pages, With scrawled notes surrounding my figures. I liked how it turned out, but then I moved on as the assignments changed and I continued to follow the prompts but throw in a little twist of m own.
Fast forward several years, past graduation and a move from Southern Arizona to the middle of Utah and the native vegetation was a huge difference in my surroundings. I'm far from a plant expert, but I could name half a dozen Cacti, and other vegetation on a hike through the Sonoran desert.
Me in the Junior Ranger summer program Saguaro National Park (see? I have credentials!)
I could even tell if the area has gotten any rain recently by the plumpness of a prickly pear leaf, but I didn't know about annuals vs. perennials. I love plants, but in Arizona the most successful gardening I had done was to weed the rock garden and relocate some barrel cactus. I want flowers in my garden, but I didn't know where to start!
October rolled around and I decided to participate in the Inktober challenge. I didn't get 31 days of drawings, but I got a start on plant research, and this series of drawings. I took each prompt, and tried to find a plant that could in some way go with that prompt. You can see more about this on my Instagram @fishoftheflock . I ended up with a few figures with floral features. Each plant was a springboard for research. On each of the finished drawings you can see notes that I wrote based on what I could learn about the plants I drew.
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