Wood Grain

Wooden Easel
Watercolour on Paper
24.5cm x 15.5cm (9.75" x 6")

Wood Grain is the first topic in the Wood Grain Patterns chapter of  Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice. The topic includes some excellent swatches of different woods and their grain patterns.

Claudia recommends drawing the grain with a pen or a dry brush. Drawing the pattern in ink proved more difficult than I expected. My initial subject was a plate carved from a piece of Ash. This has a very delicate grain pattern that I couldn’t replicate. I couldn’t match the thinness of the lines or the lightness and variety of the colours. I am probably blaming my tools, but I think you need a collection of technical pens to draw accurate grain studies.

Lesson learnt - I chose the top of Dad's desk easel as my second subject. The grain pattern on this is less subtle and lent itself to be drawn with a brush rather than a pen. The main challenge was making the perspective believable - I had to draw it 5 or 6 times before it looked right.