Tulips in a Pitcher Drawing

Hello everyone! Today I'm going to share a drawing of tulips in a pitcher. I used my bullet journal again to draw because for reasons I don't remember, I have precious left two empty pages before writing my to-do's. Since I can't remember, I thought of utilizing them for drawings. I was in a flowery mood today and wanted to put it out on my paper.

Tools and Materials

• A dotted journal
• Black gel pen
• Coloured markers
  
  

The Process

I started my drawing with the pitcher because it's the easiest part and I didn't need to think too much. I started it with the black gel pen right away without any pencil guides. I can feel I'm gaining more confidence to draw directly with a pen unlike how I was a year ago. Back then I won't even write much in this dotted journal because of the fear of messing up. As a result, I never used it much except when I newly got it mostly as a test page.

Then, I drew some flowers and leaves. I alternated between the tulips and the leaves so I can put them in a spontaneous way. That way they will look more like a bouquet and less like a perfect composition. I think it makes them more special and authentic when they're aren't perfectly arranged and lose the symmetry. I shaded the leaves with the same pen by drawing some fine lines.

I shaded the flowers too and this is how they turned out. At this point I thought I won't colour them so I shaded them a lot to the point they look like they have been smeared with some charcoal. Maybe I went a little overboard but it's ok as it was a fun process.

I added one more flower to the composition as I felt they were leaning too much towards the right. Now they have some balance. When I was happy with my little bouquet of tulips, I went ahead and shaded the pitcher. I was drawing so many lines continuously that my pen was making a weird noise probably due to the friction on paper. I was trying to keep them as fine as possible and built the shadows gradually. After a long time of scratchy sounds, I felt satisfied with the pitcher.

I could have just left it as it was but I wanted to add some colours. I used some of the markers I picked in Ikea and these are the colours that I chose for this artwork. I'm not calling them highlighters anymore because I think they are more like markers with the vibrant shades. I chose a palette of warm shades which includes almost every single warm colour from the set.

I started colouring the leaves first because I was having a battle in my mind on what colour tulips should I be doing. So I decided to skip them first and colour the easy parts first as leaves are always green. I used both the greens I had.

Then, I moved on to the pitcher and coloured it yellow with some orange shades mixed in. I think the dual colours add some dimension to the art. I didn't really mix them up to retain both unique shades.

I finally finished colouring the tulips and I decided to mix the colours for each of them. Tulips in real too have dual tones often so that's what I did. However I also felt like I made a little mess at the end as it didn't look a good as I expected it to be. I felt that markers are harder to manipulate compared to watercolours. I can't change the colours as often as I change my mind.

Anyway this is the final outcome and while it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to be, I still enjoyed the process as it was fun especially when I was colouring them at the end. I just hope I don't run out of the marker ink soon, at least until my next visit to the store.

Tarot interpretation

A little fun section I'm adding is an interpretation of the drawing based on what energy it brings. I asked an app and it said it has the energy of The Empress card. The flowers just like the empress mean creativity, nurturing, beauty and growth. They may be in a container but they are all growing into a new direction. They represent creativity and the nurturing of something beautiful.

Thank you for dropping by and I wish you a great day ahead.