5 ways to draw a buttercup

When it comes to illustration, experimentation is a very important part of the creative process. When we engage in visual play, we’re giving ourselves permission to push the boundaries of our own visual constructs. This helps us to think differently and approach the problems we’re solving from a new angle. Experimentation can also be a fun and joyful experience, with the emphasis is on the lessons learned and things discovered during the process, rather than achieving the perfect result.

One creative experimentation challenge is to pick a subject and choose 5 different methods to illustrate it. Approaching the same subject in a number of different ways not only strengthens our creative muscles, but also builds our confidence in taking creative risks, giving us the chance to refine our crafting skills.

Gathering reference imagery

I’ve chosen to illustrate a buttercup, which is a subject I can go and find reference material for very easily in my environment. Although there is clearly an abundance of reference material on the internet, on films and in printed publications, I find it helpful to also reference the real subject in front of me, as I can see it in its environment, in real time, how it reacts to light. In the case of the buttercup, I can look at a number of different flowers at the same time, which I find helpful when looking for consistent and unusual features in the plant.

You could also choose a subject and illustrate it completely from memory. Personally, I prefer to draw from reference material, because I feel I’m learning something about the subject as I visually transcribe it, and it connects me to the present moment in my environment, which is a wellbeing boost.

1. Fineliner pen

Once we have our reference material, we can begin illustrating. I started off with a fineliner pen drawing. With the absence of colour, fineliner pen allows us to initially focus solely on the line, light and shadow that the buttercup’s form consists of. I then used a grey felt tip to bring out some of the shading.

2. Watercolour paint

Watercolour can be a very forgiving paint to use because the image can be built up very gradually through thin layers. Starting off with a very light wash, we can forge the basic overall shape of the subject, and then build the detail up layer-by-layer, adjusting as we go.

Once we’ve created a single watercolour painting, we can photograph/scan it and print off duplicates, which we can then overlay with pen or paint to push the experimentation further. This lets us try out different methods more confidently, as we still have the untainted original painting, and that can encourage us to take more visual risks.

3. Digital drawing/painting

Using a digital device such as a tablet to create an image can also help build our confidence in mark making, because the software is a lot more forgiving in some ways than more traditional forms of illustration. We can erase and undo mistakes far more easily than in many ‘analogue’ forms of image making. We can duplicate the image at a click of a button, which means that we can try out an abundance of different methods in very little time. I think that a different type of problem solving occurs when we’re illustrating in more traditional media, which can be beneficial for us in our craft. However, digital methods have so much freedom of mark-making, and allow for super quick experimentation.

4. Lino

In contrast to digital drawing, I’ve found that lino printing requires a fairly high degree of prior planning and testing before being able to create an illustration with this method. Images are made by carving sections out from a sheet of linoleum, and what’s left behind creates the imprint of the image. The limitations of options when it comes to making a mark means that we’re confined to the rules of the medium, which encourages us to think differently in our approach. Its not a medium I have used many times before, and I found it challenging but refreshing to work in this way. It opened my eyes to how I can look at the subject differently, and how I can translate different features of the buttercup onto paper.

5. With a buttercup

Trying something even more experimental, I used a buttercup as my drawing tool by dipping it into indian ink and drawing with it onto paper. Pushing our creative boundaries like this can be a great way of mark-making and incorporating new techniques into our practice. It can be a brilliant method to loosen up our approach to drawing. Because I had less control over the implement I was using, and I was primed to lean into a more playful and experimental process, I relaxed my technique, worrying less about a perfect result and persuing a more flowing method of drawing.

Whichever subject and medium you choose, there’s a lot to learn and enjoy in this challenge. We can discover visual features of the subject that we didn’t notice before, learn methods of mark making that we didn’t realise we could achieve, and strengthen our problem solving skills, as well as our creative thinking, when it comes to how we approach an illustration.

If you would like to learn more about illustration methods and the joys they can bring, please get in touch!