learning to recognize plants ... via drawing
a while ago I took some photos of some plants. This is pretty routine for me. I use iNaturalist, a brilliant little site where you can contribute to citizen science and have experts arguing in your comments as to which species of hoverfly you photographed (it was a very blurry photo, and you can't tell which species it is without a microscope...)
so yeah plant photos? Regular stuff around here.
what was different this time was that I sat down afterwards to try and draw the plants from reference...
so while sitting down before, during, and after, I realized some gears turning in my head. To try and draw a plant convincingly, I had to know what specifically I was going to emphasize and detail, especially with my lower-quality tools (second-hand colored pencils & ballpoint-pen-I-found-on-the-floor, on cereal box cardboard). This meant understanding the plant, understanding its tells, what particular structures set it apart from its brethren.
in the case of Capsella bursa-pastoris shepherd's purse, the plant has tiny triangular fruits appearing towards the top, amongst the pale clusters of flowers. Anthemis arvensis is a chamomile, which all look pretty similar, though there are differences in the leaf structures. Persicaria maculosa lady's-thumb has these densely-packed little buds lending them their color before they even bloom.
my depictions are far from perfect, but the act of trying to draw the plant (as opposed to just looking at it) forced me to pare it down to important identifying features. I can now identify these plants on-sight, with far less time spent than trying to learn by repeated observation. except for maybe A. arvensis because, yeah, chamomiles...
inspired, I did it again with a new set of plants.
and again, the same phenomenon. When tasked to depict a fellow-being with the proper respect, such that that being is recognizable as itself, forces me to pay attention in a way that just-observing never could.
In the era of portable, widespread, and decent-quality photography, biological illustration is an art falling by the wayside. For realism, photography is the medium of choice. Illustration instead becomes a thing of simplified, legible diagrams ... where texture and shading take a back-seat in favor of delineating structures, precise measurements, so on. Very few university offer biological art as a subject anymore. It's a shame, I think, to lose a way-of-creating to practicalities.
...but sitting here, now, in this understanding of how doing some quick-and-rough illustrations allowed me to explore the "field marks" or "diagnostic characters" with increased depth and focus ... well, maybe this is a technique worth exploring more widely. In a culture that demands a lot of us to hurry up and focus on the grind, the act of illustration acted as an antidote, bringing me back into an existence where I can recognize my neighbors shepherd's-purse, toadflax, and cyclamen.
You can find more of my art on writheworm.tumblr.com !!
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