Exercise: More trees

More trees in more detail! I think I got bogged down again on too much detail and found it hard to consider overall form, shape and main characteristics on the first one so I tried a few different trees as well.

Above left: It is Autumn so there are fewer trees with full leaves or needles at this point but I tried to really capture the form and main branches and growth of the branches in this using pencil. Since it was quite a light and feathery tree I stuck to pencil. I tried to squiggle the leafy parts to get more texture. It took me longer just to get the branches and form than anything else. I perhaps could have picked a more interesting tree.

Above right: Gorgeous droopy tree with a very weird form. I think I could turn it into an elephant with some ears, a trunk and some tusks! The ivy-like leaves droops down in think sections and the branches at the top were the only ones visible so I tried charcoal and pencil for this.

Above left: since I was on holiday in Rome I tried out drawing some cypress trees and even sketching a little landscape (above right) of where I was sitting to try to capture the different smaller trees, bigger trunks, lines etc.

Key takeaways:

• need to try this with colour and pastel as I feel like I may be better at tone in this way
• I find using pencil to capture such tone not as convenient at all unless wanting to be really feathery and light.
• Found it hard to figure out the tone only in black and white and in between branches and leaves
• Sketching a landscape and trying to be quick about trees and where tone is regardless of leave and branch growth made it easier to capture general form and tone which could be worked on more later (above right remained a quick sketch)
• What took longer for the landscape was more getting the perspectives, lines and -viewpoint- that I wanted.
• Sitting far or close to a tree makes a massive different to view and perceived detail vs tone – being able to zoom out and ‘forget’ the detail a bit helps to get the right elements and forms to allow for any further detail needed later on!
• The light aspect is hard to gauge when there are so many colours also