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.

Sketches of Ari Cat and Tree Scene

Eleven Dots 1

Abstract Art Exercise in red and black pen on paper.

Yesterday I caught up for the day before by doing an abstract art exercise from an ebook I downloaded. It looked fun and came out surprisingly well, though completing it needed repeating it in a second color. Fun to just get creative without worrying about what it is.

Eleven Dots 2

Tombow pen on sketch paper

Did the exercise again this time playing differently with the line and forms created by the line. Resulted in a completely different abstract pattern that also worked. It surprised me how well this works as a starting point, doing it twice generated such completely different results.

Then I sketched my cat from life but didn't snap a photo or post it anywhere, was sort of doing ahead for today in case I was tired. Today I finished that page with another tree demo - this time a contour drawing to show more clearly that trees thicken toward the base and narrow toward the tips, always branching smaller and smaller without bulges. Unless the tree has a tumor like an oak gall or something, but those have a particular look and aren't an upside down gradual swelling. I threw in a couple of landscape elements and more roots this time because the same principle applies to tree roots except sometimes they dive into the ground and come up again. Played with very obvious perspective diminishing cloud sizes as they moved toward the horizon and dong the waves by the sea very small to show how high the crag the tree's on is.

Worked rater well, I think. Might rearrange it a little but it's a cool design. I'm starting to just make things up and I like that.

Tree Scene and Ari Cat Page

Tombow pen on 8 1/2" x 11" sketch paper.

Landscape with Tree

Tree on a Hillside

3 1/2" x 5 1/2" pen on paper

Went out today for my clinic visit, saw this beautiful tree as the van went past it. Sketched fast to block in its general shape in pencil, then started inking details and decided to create a background out in nature with some more distant trees over the edge of a hill. Put the smaller darker one behind it to give contrast to the pale trunk and foliage and liked that, inked it in.

Sometimes a drawing begins with a life drawing and everything else in the picture is composed from memory to set it off. That's what this one is. I like how it came out. Slopes like that are common in San Francisco so this is really a combination of several views.