Along the road from us is an old Victorian cemetery – it stopped being used years ago and is now a blue-plaqued monument – but it has lovely old trees, some huge, largely untended, interspersed with rambling grassy paths and crumbling headstones, statues and mausolea. It is caught between the road and a steep embankment of the old railway line, so everything seems close-packed and tumbling over itself. Seemed like a good place to draw trees!
I set off with my large sketchbook, pencils, Conte crayons and water-soluble pens. No-one is ever in the cemetery so it was a bit creepy wandering around, and I was greeted joyfully by a black cat who became my constant companion. I eventually found a small clearing dominated by a fir tree and, behind it, a massive weeping birch. The sun was behind them so their edges seemed to be lit up – doesn’t show up terribly well in the photo which I took to try and capture the light, but the effect was much more marked to the naked eye, particularly as the sunlight trickled through the birch branches and leaves.
I settled down against the boundary wall, ably assisted by my feline friend who kept climbing over me, trying to get into my rucksack before finally deciding to use it as a bed, and batting at my sketchpad – this is my excuse for some rather random “jogged” lines.
The fir and the big background trees (which I think are sycamore) lent themselves to big gestural sweeps with the side of a broken Conte crayon, before working in the light/dark contrasts. The weeping birch and the laurel to the left of the fir tree seemed better represented by the water-soluble pens, which were good for the trailing curtains of branches of the birch and the strong individual shapes of the laurel leaves.
The overall effect feels much more lively than the sedate and elegant original. However, I think I have managed to catch the character of the different trees through my choice of media and the different marks that these encourage.
Reflections overall:
- Techniques used to distinguish trees – think I have covered this above, particularly the differing mark-making and the choice of medium
- Conveying mass of foliage and spaces between – the fir and background trees were depicted with big wristy sweeps with the side of a crayon. The birch and the laurel were drawn with pen; long trailing marks for the birch, short punchy marks for the laurel – then some water brushed over both in places.
- Light on different parts of the tree:
- The fir was light around the edges in many places (I left these fairly airy) with some heavy shadows which I tried to indicate using negative drawing – didn’t do this everywhere, just enough to give the viewer the idea of how it went
- The birch I found tricky – the light shining through it, especially towards the top, made it look quite ethereal, and I tried suggesting this by leaving spaces. I have to admit it looks slightly odd; but I did look carefully and really couldn’t see the dark background between branches due to the intensity of the reflected light from the myriad leaves – so maybe I should have found a different way of representing all those leaves (watercolour and much thinner pen? – not sure, feel this might quickly become overworked…hmmm..)
- The laurel was almost universally dark apart from tiny patches of sunlight reflected off odd leaves – I have tried to indicate this using colour (yellow)
- Have I selected and simplified? I think in this drawing I have been forced to by the sheer weight of foliage – I’ve manages to look at patterns in the foliage without getting hung up on each individual leaf.
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