Ontwerp voor aardewerkdecoratie Iseger: Dubbele Dahlia's Possibly 1920 - 1928

This drawing, by Theo Colenbrander, is a design for pottery decoration; you can see the process of figuring out how to capture double dahlias in line. I love how the varying pressure of the pencil creates a sense of depth and texture even in this preparatory sketch. There’s something so immediate and vulnerable about a drawing like this. The light touch of the pencil on paper allows for corrections and adjustments, revealing the artist's thought process as they worked. Look at the ways Colenbrander uses hatching and shading to define the forms of the petals and leaves; it’s like he's feeling his way through the subject. The delicate linework gives the flowers a sense of fragility, as if they might crumble at any moment. You know, this reminds me a little of some of Matisse’s drawings – that same combination of confidence and hesitancy, of capturing the essence of a subject with just a few well-placed lines. It makes you wonder about all the other artists who’ve found inspiration in the humble dahlia.