I have been watering my new succulents every other day. When I painted a watercolor of my Kalanchoe succulent about a week ago, it only had one flower. The buds are now flowers.

Succulent Update
6″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

I did a pencil sketch of this plant first followed by overlaying the pencil marks with pen and ink. The flower petals on this plant are not as inspiring as some flowers. The orange, tapered ovals of the petals are sometimes directly behind others; sometimes they overlap one another. There is no obvious symmetry. This makes it harder to draw from life, exhausting, in fact.  There is no way to anticipate the next petal. The eyes and the pencil have to work together constantly.

I have learned that this is the way one should draw. Frequently though, I find myself drawing the metaphor rather than the shape in front of me. That is, I draw what my mind abstracts. For instance, a face is composed of triangles (a nose, eyebrows), crescents (mouth and lips) and shadows of assorted geometric shapes. Instead of drawing what I see, sometimes I draw the face as a conglomeration of these shapes. I feel that abstracting is more suited for drawing or painting from one’s mind rather than from life. That must be why I use this technique when I try to draw from memory.