With the solo tree studied, it was time to tackle more of our leafy friends. As with the previous exercise, I took inspiration for the work from my daily commute. There is one particular section of the trail that is lined with straight regular planted trees. The bark has extremes of contrast, with sections of white and sections of almost black. Travelling past them each day at speed on my bike, I formed an idea. I would try to produce a drawing that not only depicted the trees themselves but also what it feels like to whip past them. I would attempt to capture my movement past the trees rather than being a static observation. Each day as I passed this section of trail I would concentrate on my surrounding, making mental notes. Thoughts, ideas, jumping off points, that would help inform the drawing I would produce later. I also, while at my desk, sketched out these memories on Post-It notes. Simple references and working out which I could look back through when I was at my drawing desk at home.
So, what was I going to try and achieve with a drawing? I wanted the background to feel distant and a blur, a collection of tones that suggested rather than said. From my daily observations, I felt this was important to try to sell the speed. The trees in the mid ground would need to be nothing more that glimmers of light being bounced into the eye. The main subjects would need to contrast sharply with the background and also be somewhat stylised: at speed there is no time for painstaking details.
Having used ink and wash a bit now, I was feeling confident I could use this medium to express my ideas for this subject. I learned in the last exercise that a careful approach, while really thinking through my order of operations, would be vital.
This initial attempt was reasonably successful, executed on 8” x 4” watercolour paper, which adds a nice texture to the drawing. I used masking fluid to rough in the tree shapes before painting in the background texture. Then, after removing the masking, I used a Japanese brush pen to add the bark details. Once that was completed, I felt the work was a little flat and illustrative. Therefore, to add some dimensionality, I used graphite to describe the forms of the trees. The final touch was to add some “leaves” over the top in wash, these help with the sense of movement.
Having completed a small version, I produced this larger version measuring 15” x 7”. Again, I used a heavy watercolour paper, as I liked the textured effect. In this version, I tried to further hint at movement by keeping the brush strokes in the background horizontal. I also added more bright speckles in the mid ground. Partly because I had considerably more room, but mainly because I liked the effect and wanted to push it a bit further. I used a darker wash for the leaves this time around and I think they are much more effective.
Go bigger, go on, you know you want to. Oh, ok why not, it could be fun. This time I wanted to try to combine all the things I felt done well in the previous drawings and exercises. From this exercise, I combined the backgrounds of the previous drawing. The centre of the image is a flat horizontal blur, blending out with hint of texture and foliage. I also decided that I would mix up the trees adding some of the types I had drawn in previous exercises.
On reflection, I feel the second, middle-sized drawing is the most successful. It best captures the feeling I was going for.
Having spent a good amount of time doing these drawing, I thought I would attempt something in Acrylic paint. I’ll hold my hand up — I’m not a painter. I have near zero experience with painting as a medium, and boy, you can tell. I was attempting to capture a couple of trees catching the light while hidden in the undergrowth. I can’t think of anything good to say about this picture, other than it was a first foray into painting.
So, there we have it. Another exercise done and time to move on to project 2.
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