WRAP UP OF WORKSHOP WITH WENDY ORCHARD

This was such an enjoyable workshop, with some amazing results by the end of the day!  Our day started with Wendy explaining the principles of Nature Journaling and the different ways it can be interpreted, through images in an artist’s sketchbook, lists in a naturalist’s log or words in a writer’s journal.  She then explained, and demonstrated, the fundamentals of drawing a flower, using a template that she supplied to us all.  We then practiced drawing some flowers from different angles, using graphite pencil. Wendy then gave us all a poppy (fake) for us to draw, from the angle of our choice.  It was then time to draw some flannel flowers.  Wendy handed out small pieces of black paper and we used white pencils to draw our flowers indifferent sizes and angles.  Then, using masking fluid, we put dots of different sizes on heavy watercolour paper,either on separate pieces of paper or in our sketchbooks.  While this was drying, we enjoyed our delicious morning teas, supplied, once again, by Narelle Harvey and Catherine Feder.

Following morning tea, we returned to our page with masking fluid and,using watercolour in mainly greens and blues to create a background.  While this was drying, we got back to our flannel flowers on the black paper. Continuing with coloured pencils, we began colouring our flowers.  But now it was time to change and draw some more poppies from different angles. These we painted using black coffee, once again, supplied by Wendy!  

The pace of the day was quite rapid and we quickly moved on to our next exercise, which was to draw, using black biro, on another special piece of cardboard, supplied by Wendy.  This one had a deconstructed teabag glued to the surface, on which we were to draw an iris flower using one of the reference photos that Wendy had previously sent to all attendees.  This was an extremely enjoyable and meditative exercise, but we had to then move on to our mushrooms!  Using heavy watercolour paper we drew a fly agaric mushroom (the ones which look like fairy mushrooms!) with pencil.  We then had to use the masking fluid again to add dots to the top, with more at the bottom than the top.  Once again, this needed to dry, before we could continue on this one.  So, another mushroom beckoned.  This one was the shaggy ink cap mushroom, which we drew with black water-soluble pen.  We then brushed water to create the shading.  While this one dried were turned to our fairy mushrooms and painted the top with red watercolour.  Back on our shaggy ink cap, we used our coloured pencils to colour the top.  Both the mushrooms were drawn using Wendy’s reference photos.  

It was then our choice to return to previous images to bring them more to a finished state or to draw more mushrooms and fungus.  By the end of the day, we had produced quite a volume of work, which was truly impressive. We all absolutely loved the experience and feel we have learnt some amazing new techniques for producing some interesting and delightful images.