Variations on a Palm Frond.
In this section, you can see four different approaches to drawing a portion of the palm frond. These
are only a few of the many ways that you can approach this subject using line drawing. Notice how
each of the examples creates an entirely different effect from the others.This drawing was made with a thin, black ball-point pen. There
was a conscious effort to keep the pen on the paper, with one
unbroken uniform line, while drawing each individual palm
frond. The pattern of positive and negative shapes shown here
was created by the overall forms of the leaves, rather than by
attempting to precisely describe each form. When attempting a
drawing such this, you can very lightly draw the object with an
H or 2H pencil to give yourself a guide to use.
This example was drawn on a lightly textured paper with
medium-hard charcoal. The artist wanted to draw the shapes
of the palm frond quickly and energetically, with a fair amount
of variation, from very dark and heavy to lighter and thinner.
The shapes of the palm frond lent themselves to energetic,
sweeping lines in this drawing. It is often the subject that
sparks the idea to experiment with a new technique.