…are very hard to draw!

I have always loved Jacobean designs, since way before I even knew what they were called. I still remember the first time I heard the term. I was wearing a skirt with a flowery pattern and someone complimented it, saying, “That’s very Jacobean”. Not wanting to admit my ignorance of the term, I just agreed and looked it up later.

Turns out the term “Jacobean era” refers to the reign of James VI of Scotland, who later became James I of England. The time frame for this was 1567 to 1625. Previously unbeknownst to me, “Jacobus” is the Latin version of “James”, and that’s how the era got its name.

That being said, I have been trying to draw “Jacobean” flowers for years. A lot of my first ones were done with gel pens. (Truth in blogging 1: I considered cropping out the rather “clunky” butterflies, but then I thought, might as well be honest. These were from before I “got the hang” of drawing butterflies.)

Jacobean flowers seem to have a certain shape that distinguishes them from your average, round centered flower with petals around the edge. This is from when I first began trying to draw flowers of any kind, I’m guessing around 2011. I found a piece of clip art online and tried to duplicate it. You will notice the whimsical insect, which brings up an interesting point. Every couple of weeks, I notice in my blog stats that “A Closer Look(or How to Draw Whimsical Insects)” gets viewed. Of all my older posts that get occasional repeat views, that one surprises me. Maybe young kids look up “how to draw insects” and find themselves on my blog, thinking, “Whoa, how did I end up here?” But anyway.

(Truth in blogging 2: A clunky butterfly was cropped out of the left hand side of this drawing.)

I also thought it would look cool if I just cropped it down to the bottom part.

I’m not sure how “Jacobean” these are, but I do like the colors.

This one is “different”. I came across it in my old “drawings” folder while looking for pictures for this post, so decided to include it. It’s kind of a mixture of flower “styles”, but it has its place, I guess.I think this is my all-time favorite “Jacobean” flower to date. I have postcards of this design in my Zazzle store,  and a ceramic ornament, which you can see here and here.I don’t remember what program I used to create this effect, but I found it in my files and thought it was worth sharing. Which brings us to the present, or shall I say, this summer. I went on a bit of a Jacobean flower roll with my graph paper notebook. I started saving images of Jacobean flowers on Pinterest to try drawing later. One place you will find a lot of these, perhaps not surprisingly, is in embroidery books and posts.This one got colored in later, as you can see below.Don’t ask what the math problems were about. I think I was helping someone with homework. Math was never my strong suit, despite the fact that my dad spent much of his teaching career in 7th and 8th grade math.You’ll notice these drawings are not posted in chronological order. Organization ranks right up there with math when it comes to my “skills”, or lack thereof.I like putting flowers in frames or boxes.Unless you live in central California, the weather notes at the right may make little sense. I don’t even remember how many days in a row the highs were in triple digits this summer. This one is from a little over a year ago, but it was in the same notebook. I suppose if I really want to practice drawing Jacobean flowers I should be using nicer paper, and maybe some color. Maybe that can be one of my goals for 2019.

And speaking of color…

There is always the  “folk art” style. What I love about this is that nothing has to look real (have I ever mentioned this is a great reason to label your art “whimsical”?)