Wednesday 18 May 2011

Trees!





I've mainly focused my drawing on people and never really attempted
to draw trees at all. So here's some of my recent efforts. I soon realised
adding the third dimension in there somehow was vital to a successful
and believable tree, but I also found it most challenging. I thought
drawing the branches, twigs and leaves was a bit overly tedious. Is there
a secret to it? I'd really appreciated any tips or advice from friends out
there that have experience with trees in particular!

5 comments:

L Rossi said...

These are really nice dude!
I also am in the same boat as you! I asked someone a couple of weeks ago actually about drawing trees - they said to draw the overall volume of the mass of foliage, and then draw within the shape. I think that's good for bushy trees, but not sure about ones which have no leaves and are just branches :/

Geoff King said...

Thanks Rossi!:)
I found the detail of adding branches off of branches over and over extremely strenuous.
I have heard of drawing the overall volume of foliage before, but when there are no leaves on the tree I'm just left drawing sticks. I shall have to try again now the trees have bloomed

libra bear said...

Great studies geoff. I always lose patience drawing trees.

Kristian said...

Loving these studies. I have enormous respect for artists who draw nature like you have. There is great skill interpreting leaves and foliage.
I found this book a greta read
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drawing-Trees-Nature-Victorian-Instruction/dp/0486442934

Geoff King said...

Wow, thanks Kristian! The book looks very interesting.
I just remembered that when I drew these I was thinking about a piece of advice my uni prof, Peter Parr, told me.. it was about feeling out the different textures of a subject and distinguishing them by using the pen/pencil in different ways. I didn't physically hold the pen differently but did try to think of the foliage and branches as separate textures.
Just thought I'd share that cos i didn't want to forget it myself..
Thanks for the comment :)