Tree in Mist in Tombow markers

Tree in Mist, 8 1/2" x 11" 

Tombow dual tip pens on sketch paper

Another tree demo for my email sudent. This time showing how to pull some branches forward and push others back with color and value. There's a bit of mist but still enough directional light for distinct shadows in this, also I was describing how grass under trees really gets when it's not on a golf course. Patchy with lots of bare spots and mud puddles, little clumps and hummocks of plants rather than smooth flat color as if perfect bright green sod just got laid.

That sod will yellow in close shade too, especially after the trees leaf out.

So often we learn to draw in kindergarten but are doing so in specific grade school symbols - a brown stick with a green ball or blob on top, maybe forked with a ball on top. Stick figures. Horizon line based on the lines you write on - all the drawings lined up on the horizon line. 

Accurate drawing means letting go of these things and finding new ways to simplify the ridiculous amount of detail in the real things. You can't paint every blade of grass but you can get the mower stripes on the lawn and people can see that's a lawn.