Thoughts Prior to Beginning Part 3…
Looking over some fellow student blogs I was struck by one student who demonstrates her thinking using Mind Maps. I constantly turn to mind maps in my every-day life. Being a teacher, I always do my lesson plans in this format for example. I will try to use these in future to ‘push’ my thinking when completing future exercises and assignments.
I also saw, in this same student blog, how she used photography as a way of exploring her roughs further. I could see how she arrived at a totally different resolution for her assignment that she might never have achieved without fully exploring her subjects and compositions, through her photographic explorations. Her thumbnails and smaller sketches then explored mediums. I know in my last assignment, my ‘test’ pieces were far too big, tight, and ultimately too like the finished pieces. My first response to exploring ideas has generally been to ‘look through a lens’ but I think I felt I then had to use drawn roughs. I now think that I shall include some of my photographic research as it is a way of exploring more ideas in a quicker way before narrowing the focus down and exploring ideas, and media further through drawings.
It has been most enlightening taking some time this morning to look at other approaches to the same work as I am doing. If I were in a class with fellow students, this is the same kind of exposure I would be getting and it is a really valuable part of furthering my own learning.
Exercise 1 – Sketching Individual Trees
Summer is clearly coming to an end, but as yet the leaves are still green and haven’t begun to fall. This tree stood alone at the top of a hill and the light shone clearly through its branches. No other trees around interfered with its outline and I was compelled to stop, on my way home, and try to capture something about it, knowing that ‘tree drawing’ was coming up soon in my art programme. I was keen to ‘draw from life’. I felt energy and enthusiasm when drawing this and hope that some of that is visible in the drawing.
The other trees I drew for this exercise were also from ‘life’ and are in our garden, which makes for a ‘less-self-conscious’ experience.
This charcoal drawn tree is a young one in our garden. At the moment the leaves are a most incredible vibrant spring green. I call this our ‘traffic light’ tree as in a few weeks, weather dependant, sometimes the leaves at the top will turn red, in the middle orange and it will still have green leaves at the bottom. I was conscious to make the branches nearer to me and projecting forward, darker in tone, and those angled away, lighter in tone… receding.
This is a 6 year old plum tree in our garden. I began realising as I drew this one, how very different the shape of the tree was and how all the growth was ‘upward’. The top of it disappears off the page but the whole shape is diamond like, as in the small sketch to the right of the tree, but it has a very condensed shape in contrast to the others. This is also the first year it has successfully produced any plums. We have still to beat the insects to them. Maybe next year.
Again I consciously tried to draw the nearest branches with a darker tone, and then, like the previous one did a little study of a leaf cluster in more detail.
The next tree is a big pine tree which has grown very fast over the last 7 years. Like the plum tree, the branches all seek to curve upwards towards the light. It was surprising, in looking closer, to see just how many pine cones were forming at the top of most of the branches. I am not sure the big chunky pencil was a good tool for this as the branches look furry, rather than having long, fine needles on each one. A pen might have been more effective.
Finally then, with a fine ink pen I drew the olive tree. I made sure I was looking at the tree rather than the drawing for most of the time, and I did not get too caught up in looking where each individual thin leaf went. I think it does capture the essence of the tree in the pot.
I think I might revisit our ‘traffic light’ tree as Autumn begins to affect it more. It will be an interesting comparison to the full bodied leafy tree it is now. I know the amazing colours don’t happen every year and that it is due to certain weather conditions. Unfortunately I haven’t yet identified what is the optimum weather for the colours. Hopefully it will happen this year though.
Exercise 2 – Larger Observational Study of a Tree
As this exercise was going to take some while longer than the other ‘life’ sketches, I decided to use a photo I had taken as reference. The additional advantage is the consistency of light and not having to be outside in a fairly isolated place for an extended period.
Having seen from my initial studies, that a pen, and a fine one, gave a pleasing effect I decided to use a biro for this exercise. I know with this tool I can get a really wide range of tones, and this would be useful to work with for the photo I had selected. There isn’t a lot of variation in the colour of this tree trunk for much of it, apart from where the moss has grown nearer the base. I wanted to use some light tones to suggest form higher up the tree in particular.
Some of the base of the tree, in particular is different, but it still works, and unless you saw the original photo you would not know.
It was at times quite challenging to see light and dark on the tree as it was quite a dull day. If I had taken a similar photo in brighter conditions it might have been easier and more striking. However, this way it is subtle. The thin washes of drawing ink pull it enough from the background.
My aim in this artwork was to create a well observed study capturing the essence with subtle detailing using a wide range of tones to create and enhance the 3 dimensional nature of the tree and branches.
What have I learned
- Not to be overwhelmed by detail when I start to look at a tree. Consider more how to capture the essence of it.
- Just keep working at it even when you are not sure it is going to work out. Work through the doubts.
- Stand back and take a break regularly on work that takes longer. Look at your work from a distance and reflect on next steps
- In these drawings at this scale a fine media worked well. Perhaps for a larger scale drawing I could try a chunkier medium.
- The really liberating thing about drawing from nature means that I didn’t have to get caught up with making everything exactly the same as my reference photo.
- Drawing a tree doesn’t mean I need to draw all of it. Focussing on a particular aspect (like Klimt with Birch Wood) can make successful artwork.
- Consider your focus carefully. What are the aims of your drawing… Is it realism, pattern, contrast, close observation, statement, composition to create a sense of distance or something else?
Exercise 3, Study of Several Trees
The view I selected lent itself to a square format. In composing the image, I tried to include some particular aspects of the ‘golden section’. I tried to keep the horizon line around a third of the way into the composition, from the bottom of the page, and the first, main tree sits around a third into the composition from the left edge.
In reviewing my initial sketch I recognised that I needed to reduce the strength of the colour and detail as the trees moved further into the picture on the right . The diagonal format created by the tree line, leads into the picture and creates a sense of perspective.
Aerial perspective is represented through the blue hills in the background.
As I haven’t really used oil pastels in many of my exercises, I thought this would be an ideal subject for them. I hoped their chunkiness would mean that the drawing would be looser. I did first experiment with blending the pastels with ‘Zest It’ to explore what effects I could achieve on the foliage in particular.
Some of the experiments comprised putting the colours down first and then partially blending. Others tried laying a base colour down, blending it and putting colours on top. What I found with this was that it was hard to add lighter colours effectively on top and the result was very muddy, with no lightness able to shine through the foliage. I found the results more pleasing and varied with no ‘Zest It’.
I initially chose a light coloured untextured paper. The effect is quite primitive, but lively. It lacks detail but captures the essence of the sun shining through the trees. I haven’t successfully shown distance with the colouring of the trees, although I did try to show less detail. I am not sure this is evident though.
I was curious how this artwork might work on a darker, textured sheet of paper. I liked that the trees almost looked outlined, but the foliage was less effective, and the colours less vibrant. I think the texture of the paper was significant in this as the colours did not sit on the paper so easily and the dark paper between the colours, effectively mutes them.
Value of the Exercise
- Seeing the ‘whole’ of the image and not being overwhelmed by detail.
- Demonstrating understanding of perspective
- Growing confidence for drawing landscapes
What did I learn?
- I think I had more control of the watercolour pencil medium in terms of suggesting diminishing detail over space.
- The watercolour pencil also allowed more subtlety in lightening tones and colours. The oil pastels are much more garish.
- An advantage of using oil pastels in this was that the image was simplified, and perhaps more ‘expressive’.
- For this subject, and the subtlety required the textured paper was not a good choice.
- The ‘Zest It’ can still be explored more for other circumstances, but it was not helpful in this composition.
Reflection questions from the Tree Exercises
What techniques did you use to distinguish one species of tree from another?
In this drawing, all the trees are the same species. However, in the individual tree studies, I focussed on the branches… did they reach up, curve up, stretch out, etc. I also looked at the leaves and fruit and tried to get my marks to represent the patterns and shapes I could see. I also did smaller studies showing what the leaves looked like in close up. The negative spaces within the tress were also significant in capturing the essence of each tree I observed.
How did you convey the mass of foliage and the spaces between them?
I endeavoured to try and use my mark making to represent the patterns and shapes I saw with each individual tree. I didn’t have a ‘tree formula’ I really focussed on drawing and capturing what I could see, and each drawing was different for that. In some areas foliage was more dense, and in others, the light shining through was more important. I did try to accurately reflect this in my drawings.
Did you manage to select and simplify?
Yes, I don’t think it would be possible to draw a tree with foliage without doing this. However, the closely observed single tree was drawn with much more conscious observation of all the individual major branches and the relationships between them. This was possible to do in this instance as the tree had shed its leaves, leaving the wonderful patterns and spaces formed by the empty branches. The selection of media also plays an important part in this. Using the chunkier oil pastels meant that the group of trees exercise resulted in the creation of an ‘essence’ of themselves rather than an accurate observed drawing. The one on plain paper feels quite animated because of this.
Cathy's OCA Drawing 1 Blog 