Trees are really tricky. I even went so far as to buy a book on drawing trees, but it was one of the old Adrian Hill art books and was a bit of a tough read. I struggled through the first half of it, but the secret to getting good at drawing trees is like the secret to getting good at drawing anything else; draw lots of them.
Above is one of my recent attempts at drawing trees. Seeing as I live on the edge of the countryside, there are trees everywhere. It’s actually a lot harder to go out and find interesting building to draw, as my local area has a very suburban taste in architecture. And, while trees are hard, those orange-bricked houses of the recent past are almost impossible to draw in an interesting way.
(And even if I could, why would I want to? They signify everything that is humdrum and boring. Surely looking at an image should be slightly more interesting than looking at a picture of a suburban street with mundane architecture.)
The other image is a picture of some trees from earlier this year, so you can see that there is some progression. On the other hand, you can also see that it’s not a huge amount of progression… oh well! I’m really waiting for autumn to come around before I start concentrating on trees, as that is when they start to be more interesting – both in colour and in shape, as the leaves start to fall off them.
And speaking of interesting, I’ve broken my rule about putting up a funny story about each painting. I’m sorry! It would have been much better if I’d told you about the kayaking guy who went past as I was painting the top image. Oops!
I’m curious to know about the kayaking guy in the first image. Unless of course it was a joke and there really was no kayaking guy just like the bird men i thought i saw when out drawing once ;)
Because it’s your birthday, Stu, I will briefly tell the kayaking guy story. I was sitting on the muddy banks of the Ivel when a guy rode past me on a kayak. He called out to me “you don’t mind if I get in the picture?” and I made nodding gestures to indicate that, yes, he had done a funny. Then he got out at Jordan’s Mill because he couldn’t go any further, rested a bit, and then paddled back past me when I was doing a picture of a tree on the other bank.
What I really dislike about the top picture is that I failed at getting the water right, at all. The trees are pretty disappointing, but you can tell they are trees as they are big green ovals. Or, y’know, massively out of control hedges. Either way, some form of vegetation. Running water, like rivers, just seems impossibly hard. I have no idea how I will get the knack of it.