Basil, African Blue

basilBasil never seems very happy in our garden so we’re going to see if this African Blue variety does any better.

Pencil and watercolour isn’t normally my thing but I’m currently reading Agathe Ravet-Haevermans’ Drawing Nature, so I’m giving her favourite media a try.

She works as a botanical draughtsman at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and her approach has a typically French analytical edge. She suggests that you should start by looking for the axis for a plant or an individual leaf;

‘To make the drawing a coherent whole, you must always draw the axis first and the surrounding elements after’

This is rather different to my approach to observational drawing where I map out shapes and the negative spaces between them, trusting that the whole plant will then look convincing.