Exploring Visual Texture

My drawing students are about to begin an assignment focusing on visual texture. Visual texture is when you create the illusion of physical texture with marks. A fun way to explore texture is with plants and vegetables, I love to draw the shiny polished surface of a pepper or apple and juxtapose it to the roughened surface of a pineapple or coconut. This afternoon I did a few sketches showing plant textures.

For those of you interested in plant textures and drawing plants there is a new book out by Sarah Simblet called Botany for Artists. I plan on blogging about this wonderful book in a future post.

Another artist I have long admired for his use of texture in drawing is Dutch printmaker Jakob Demus. He creates his remarkable prints by using drypoint on copper plates. I saw an exhibition of his work in Amsterdam at the Rembrandthuis and was amazed with the textural interest in his prints. Below is his diamond drypoint print of irises.

In a past post I mentioned botanic artist Ann Swan's book called "Botanical Portraits". Below is her graphite drawing of peppers. I like how she juxtaposed the shiny outside with the rough interior.



Plant textures. Photo by Marie Dauenheimer



Sketch of delpheniums by Marie Dauenheimer



Sketch by Marie Dauenheimer



Drypoint etching of irises by Jakob Demus.



Graphite drawing of peppers by Ann Swan.