Here ON the West Coast trees are GREEN. All Summer!! Many of them all winter too.
So how can that be COLOURFUL?!
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| Part of an Old Garry Oak Tree I found on the Trail |
I must admit, I love the trees here on the coast. As a kid I loved to climb them. And of course the forts. Secret Forts, of course. Up in the branches or buried in the bushes. My special place. As an adult I still feel there is just something about being around trees that calms and centers me. I know I am not alone.
However, when it comes time to draw and paint trees everything changes . . . .
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| Part of a beautiful old Gary Oak Tree I found on the trail |
Trees are a Challenge. . .
As a subject they are very complex. And in the summer, they are all GREEN. This makes them even harder to work with.
Over time I have found a few things that have helped me.
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*** Further discussion can be found on my YouTube video: How to turn a Complex Tree into Art
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I did some hiking while on Gabriola Island this summer and came across this big, old Gary Oat Tree. It was certainly a stranger on the island as they are usually only found close to the salt water on the southern part of Vancouver Island. This one had fallen over many years ago and was still thriving. Horizontally rather then Vertically. A real testament of survival.
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| Look for the branch structure to get your bearings |
I was really drawn to the tree and felt I needed to draw it. Because it was so big and I wanted to zoom in on it, I decided to paint only half of the tree. (yes there is way more of the tree on the left side. Remember it is laying down)
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| The leaves are in clumps. |
Using the branches to get the structure and size of the tree I set up my drawing. After that I used a loose line to create the clumps of leaves, trying to keep the tree loose and lively.
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The branches give structure to the clumps of leaves
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Because of the complexity of the branches I opted to paint the main branches first so I could clump the leaves around them.
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| Seeing the branches with the clumps helps to set up the drawing |
When it came to painting the clumps of leaves I moved around the tree focusing on 3 things:
- 3 colours for the sunny bright areas on the tree (Sorry, I know they are a little hard to see in the reference picture as it is reduced down to such a small size)
- 3 colours for the dark shadowy areas of the branches
- focused on each clump moving from dark to light in value, temperature and colour (so each clump has 6 colour changes)
You'll notice I did the same with the branches and ground in trying to create depth and texture. I like to challenge myself to have at least 3 difference colours in any shape. This ensures I have warm and cold colours as the shape moves from light to dark.
**Special Note: I was also experimenting with using other colours. I decided rather than have white for my white areas, I used a light shade of my turquoise blue. The jury is still out on whether I like it there or not but it does make for interesting colour in the leaves.
Do you have special colours you use to deal with GREEN leaves?
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