How to create the illusion of form

How to Create the Illusion of Form

A fundamental learning in botanical painting is how to communicate the 3-dimensional characteristics of your specimen. In this lesson, I'll teach you how to do this with pencil, and then show you how it works in practice using a shallot.

The Illusion of Form

Botanical painting is all about representing a specimen in its truest, most realistic sense. An essential part of this is learning how to capture the feeling of a 3-dimensional object onto a 2-dimensional piece of paper. This is called creating the illusion of form.

The illusion of form is created by replicating the effect of light and shadow on an object. Many artists choose for their light source to come from the upper left of the page, with the shadows falling on the lower right side.

Lighter areas represent where the object is protruding, and shadowed areas signify where it is receding.

This contrast between light and shadow is a device we can use to communicate that something you are painting or drawing is 3-dimensional.

You Will Need

• Paper
• Pencil
• Putty rubber
• Divider

Key Shapes

I would recommend practising using the following three shapes.

• Sphere

This can be translated into many botanical subjects, such as a berry, tomato or clementine.

• Cylinder

Represents the shape of a stalk or stem.

• Bowl

Many flowers and petals are cupped in shape.

• Ribbon

A great way to practise communicating an object protruding and then receding.

Using Your Pencil

When creating graduated areas of shadow, use your pencil in a very tight circular motion to draw lots of tiny circles - this provides a very smooth effect.

In darker areas you will want to build up several layers and press your pencil onto the page quite firmly, whereas lighter sections require a much more delicate touch.