Drawing a Summer Ornament
This week, I want to show that an ornament can be more than just a decoration. An ornament can be a framework for expression in the same way as a portrait, a still life, or a landscape.
I love drawing ornaments. It feels as though the universe is shouting at me: “This is right, this is a good thing!” If I’ve had past lives, I’d think this is the work I’ve always done in some form, because it feels so natural.
Step 1 – Grid
If I decide to draw an ornament, nothing holds me back—not even the requirement of symmetry. This time, I made a grid to help me achieve similarity on both sides more easily.
It’s good to have center guidelines, but there can be more and placed anywhere. All guidelines are helpful when drawing the ornament freely.
Step 2 – Pencil Sketch
I sketch the biggest symmetrical parts in pencil. But I try to keep this phase short because the best part of drawing ornaments is letting loose and discovering how the symmetry can be broken.
Drawing an ornament is like putting your soul into a lion’s cage and then watching it break out with cleverness, rather than violence.
Step 3 – Getting Creative with a Non-Erasable Pen
For the actual drawing, I use black markers. Here, I’m using Copic FineLiner pens and a Copic Gasenfude brush pen. An ornament is like a meandering canvas where you can draw anything. You can draw both the realistic and the abstract, and it all looks great because it’s embedded in the ornamental structure.
We currently have summer here in Finland, so I wanted to draw summer-related things: the sea, a garden, and birch leaves.
Step 4 – Getting Lost in the Details
When I have most of the things in place, I put on an audiobook or a talk show and focus on the details!
My ornaments almost always have jewels because I find them fun to draw and the result rewarding. A jewel comes to life when you draw geometric shapes with a fine pen and fill them differently.
I always include elements that are pitch-black to create contrast. The brush pen is quick in these details.
The Freedom in Drawing Ornaments
The longer I draw, the more I want to create tension and asymmetry. In this ornament, the lines took on a life of their own and spread beyond its borders. Ah, so liberating!
It’s exciting and even contradictory that such freedom can be evoked from a rigid ornament.
The Summer Ornament
Here you can see how I’ve used the pens for the fine details in the center.
I hope this summer ornament inspires you to pick up your pens and start drawing!
For more inspiration, see also these blog posts:
This is so beautiful! I need to do this. This is the first year in a long time I have not yet been that creative. Maybe this will help! Thank you for sharing!
I hope you do, Melinda! Sending lots of creative vibes!
Ooh this is not something I have given thought to before although I doodle and mark make and sketch faces and paint etc etc. I’m going to try this because work a grid to help balance the perspective of an ‘ornament’ has now piqued my interest…
Wonderful to hear, Lisa, have fun!
It’s beautiful. Thank you for this blogpost ❤️
Thank you, Elly!
Thank you for this post and artwork. I especially enjoyed clicking onto the links for your sketchbook and drawings. I love how you link everything to your childhood and the precise memories from then. Your art has moved on quite a lot since those posts, so it’s lovely to see that you not only hold onto those drawing days of your more precision ornaments, but have carried on with drawing them. I love the black and white as a change too.
Thank you, Susan! I don’t want to abandon, but extend!
I recently saw some beautiful title art done for the British series “The Essex Serpent” and after doing some research realized it was based on the art of William Morris. This particular post reminds me of it and I will use it as a basis for an illustration idea I came up with recently. Thanks again, Päivi!
Thank you, Lynne! Ornaments are great for illustration ideas. I love William Morris. The Essex Serpent was a new series to me, thank you for sharing!