Tree bark drawing - oak

 

The reference picture with the beautiful bark of an oak tree was waiting to be used for several months and I finally decided how I wanted to use it.

For this work I first made a watercolour under painting, followed by drawing the tree bark with a Graphitint pencil on the dry underpainting. This is how I usually made these tree bark drawings, though the latest one already had an 'extra' by adding the shapes of the leaves.

Now the experiment starts!

Once complete, I used watercolour paint for the colours on the tree, but not exactly as they are. Using the watercolour also activated the colour of the Graphitint pencil I used for the drawing. The Graphitint pencils are water soluble and show a different shade when activated by water. After all was (as good as) dry I used the pencil again to deepen the shadow parts.

So far I have only been working on the tree bark and now it was time for the 'extra', acorns this time. I made some shapes of acorns and the little caps they have with white paper and used these shapes for a first composition. The shapes have different sizes, that is how I wanted to do this. Drawing around the shapes with the Grapitint pencil did not really give the result I wanted so I used a white Graphitint pencil to draw these shapes again.

The result was nice, but not enough, so I almost filled the paper with these shapes I cut out, overlapping in areas and drawing the outlines with both pencils. After that I used the pencils to indicate the volumes of the acorns and that gave me the result I was looking for.

The experiment was nice, combining pencils and paint and making two layers of shapes, the tree bark and the fruits of the tree.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this work and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Autumn magic

 

The October challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about Autumn magic or enchanting autumn. The real challenge for me was trying to paint or draw something that I have not done before. After some thought I decided on my little oak tree (not yet two years old) and a drawing with a watercolour under painting.

For the under painting I used cling film for the effect - something I know about but have not done before. Not really much paint in two colours and let the cling film do its magic while the paint dries.

On the background I used my watercolour pencils. The picture is taken from above, with such a small tree this is almost the only way. For the top leaves I used water after the first pencil layer and added two or three more layers of colour. The other leaves are only pencil marks on the paper (no water used) and I used less layers of pencil for the lowest leaves. 

The stem (tree trunk is a bit too much yet) is added to show where the leaves come from.

This was fun, partly an experiment for the background but I really like the result.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this work and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

My little oak tree - Autumn

 

Last year we had a surprise in our garden, we suddenly had an oak tree. A little one of course and probably the acorn was planted by a jay that did not have the opportunity to eat it before it turned into a plant. We re-planted our tree so it would not be killed during a lawn-mowing activity and it survived all this. 

So now the tree is in its second year and at this moment it shows nice autumn colours. Which means I have to paint my little oak tree.

For this painting I made several reference pictures and selected a nice group of leaves showing the autumnal colours of an oak tree. The background is lightly coloured and the leaves have the same colours - and some more.

This is the first time I paint oak leaves so very detailed and I really like the result of my work.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

The old one - 2 a pencil drawing

 

In my previous post I wrote about the big oak tree we saw at the Mantingerveld (The Netherlands) when we made a signposted walk in that Natural Reserve.

The tree was too big for my watercolour paper so I made another attempt to show it. This time I used pencils on 'mixed media' paper, which is more smooth than the watercolour paper I use. Again the tree does not fit on the paper, but I can show its size a bit better now.

The format is landscape, so I can give more space to the very long lower branches. The tree trunk is made smaller compared to the watercolour (in absolute figures, not compared to the branches) so there would be more space to show the branches. Using pencils also means that I can make the details smaller without losing the structure of the subject.

As said, again the tree does not fit on the paper and there are only a few groups of leaves visible, only where they are in front of the tree trunk and the bigger branches. I did not fill in the background with sky, bushes and the suggestion of other trees further back so the tree is my only subject. The ground is only added so it would not be floating in space.

The tree trunk and the branches have several layers of pencil, the first layer is made more intensive with a little water, to 'wake up' the colours. The foliage and the ground have only one layer of pencil colour, with no water added.

When the drawing and the watercolour painting are next to each other, the watercolour has darker colours, the tree is bigger and so it seems to be the better version. When the drawing is on its own, it looks like what I wanted to do, with the emphasis on the structure of the tree.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this drawing and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artwork, please contact me.

The old one

 

In my previous post about the Mantingerveld I have written that there are some oak trees in that Natural Reserve and this is one of them.

The tree is old, large and it was not possible to get a good picture of the whole tree. The tree came in full view behind some other trees and bushes and stepping back would have meant that those bushes were blocking the view on the tree. So my reference picture does not show the whole tree.

My painting does show even less of the tree, I should have selected a much bigger piece of paper to do justice to the size of this oak tree. Unfortunately I do not have the facilities to paint that large. 

So I decided to paint just a part of the tree, placing it in the middle of my paper, making the trunk and the large lower branches as small as possible - so that the other branches would still have some volume - and just finding out what I would end up with. 

In May the leaves are still fresh green and small, so there was not much foliage to be painted. Most of the leaves are at the end of the branches, not visible in this painting. The structure of this old tree is still visible, because it is so early in Springtime and that is exactly what inspired me to make the reference picture and this painting.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.