Tree Rendering Exercise

Tree and Barn

Drawn with 8B pencil and smudge stick on cheap sketch paper, from my imagination. This was one of my first attempts at rendering trees "shadow first" (see below), and as such is not too hot. Overall, the little sketch is satisfying (at least to me), but the tree is too round and is lacking texture (which is somewhat due to the very dull, soft pencil), and the composition is surely not great.

 

Also in evidence is the problem with using cheap sketch paper -- my ink drawing on the other side of the page is showing through. Ugh.

 

I've been reading a really good book on drawing trees and such: On Drawing Trees and Nature: A Classic Victorian Manual, by J.D. Harding. While the prose is dense as concrete to modern readers, it offers no-nonsense rendering advice that I felt I could put to use immediately.

 

I stayed up late last night scribbling out trees in pencil and pen, just making up stuff. I think this book and some practice will give me the skills I need to do better rendering of plants and trees from life.

Done