Method to drawing leaf stems

12:25 PM, Wednesday July 15th 2020

When it comes to drawing stems, I notice that Uncomfortable draws his in a slightly different way when he is drawing a potato plant. In the Branches Exercise, he draws his cylinders with a line through them, between both sides. However, in the potato plant, he doesn't draw a line through the cylinders but only draws the sides. This is what I mean: https://imgur.com/a/trTGif4

In order words, which one of the two should I be using when drawing leaf stems? Personally, when I draw leaf stems, since they're quite thin, the method on the right is the easiest. But is this defeating the purpose?

Many thanks.

Report
0 users agree
2:56 PM, Wednesday July 15th 2020

Personally it depends of the stem. Sometimes it's just too thin for the cylinders, so I draw the sides. Same for the anthers and filaments of flowers. I guess if the leaf stem is thick enough you can try going for the cylinders.

8:39 AM, Monday July 20th 2020

Thanks for your reply. It's good to know how other people here approach it.

This is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Color and Light by James Gurney

Color and Light by James Gurney

Some of you may remember James Gurney's breathtaking work in the Dinotopia series. This is easily my favourite book on the topic of colour and light, and comes highly recommended by any artist worth their salt. While it speaks from the perspective of a traditional painter, the information in this book is invaluable for work in any medium.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.