Ugly Art or Ugly Subject?

I maintain that I have little in the way of artistic talent. But apparently I remembered a thing or two from my high school art classes because this journal page didn't turn out near as stick-figure-ish as I had anticipated.

Do A Really Ugly Drawing...

The subject of these drawings was a dead/dying hibiscus that I have on my back porch. I've had a horrible time this summer keeping it alive (it has never recovered from being pot-bound and then the shock of replanting) so I have decided to be merciful and just let it die. Eventually, I will get another one and try to make it live longer than two years.

Anyway, even though it looks horrible on my porch, it made a great subject for the ugly drawing. And yes, I drew it twice. The first picture (on the right) was one that I drew from memory (though my mental image was obviously off - I had even forgotten that I repotted it from the basketweave planter to a barrel-slat-ish planter). Anyway, I was content with how the drawing turned out considering my aforementioned lack of artistic talent, a spotty memory as my model and the fact that it was, you know, of a dead plant. But there was still this whole blank page on the left....

So I drew it again. This time, I took a picture of the plant and put it up on my laptop screen while I drew it. Yes, I could have gone out to the porch and used the "live" *ahem* model, but dude. Freakin' hot. So no, I couldn't have.

Anyway, for a dead plant, I think the second drawing turned out pretty well. Obviously I remembered something from my old art classes (though honestly, all I remembered was shading - and I even messed that up a little but it looks so much better before I did the (slightly off) shading to it so woo hoo!).

But all in all, this exercise has been fun. And the fact that my sketches (both of them) while not perfect were at least recognizable as dead plants make me more positive about the next craft I have gotten into my head I want to try: watercolors.

No seriously. I have the urge. So I'm going to see what I can do. Though right now, I'm reading a book to try to figure out what I need to get so I can see what I can do. If anything comes of it, I'll post more.

Until then, you can see the dead plant that was my model.

My Lovely Muse