Beech tree bark

 

During my painting vacation I made several reference pictures of trees and tree bark hoping I could use them that same week. One of the pictures is of a beech tree that had several dark spots at eye level (my eyes) so I made the picture. When looking at my pictures our teacher and coach Ad van Aart suggested I would make a watercolour painting of that part of the tree including a bit of the background. 

So I tried to do that, on the hottest afternoon of the month. Of course I failed being too tired with the heat and humidity and my paper (I selected Grain Torchon) would not dry because of that same humidity. At last I gave up and when I did show the work everyone mistook the tree for a birch, the tree trunk was too light and the dark spots were too dark, as you can see below.

As I wanted to paint the beech tree, I tried again at home on Grain Fin paper and I started differently. Now I succeeded to make it look like a beech tree. 

This tree stands in the shadow of other, large trees all the time and did not grow upright. 

The tree bark is dark grey with patches of green that are caused by some algae growing on the tree bark. The dark spots are not all dark brown (my mistake in the first version) but just darker grey with a touch of the green I mentioned. For this version I also changed the composition a bit, the left side of the tree - with some extra dark structures - is now visible so the structure of the tree trunk is more comprehensible.

The second painting (the one above) is what I hoped for. Beech trees do not have a very structured bark and this is the best I could do.

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

The base, beech tree - another work, another technique

 

Another work using the tree roots of the beech tree we saw near Vaals (Netherlands) last October. As I did not know when I would have the time to make this work (we planned some nice things to do) I made a blog post with the first two works and decided to wait with the third work until later.

This work is also based on the charcoal drawing I made first so the reference picture was not used for the graphite drawing.

For this drawing I have used some colours of the Tailor shaped water soluble graphite that I discovered earlier this year. The shape of these graphite 'sticks' works nice and as it is water soluble only water and soap are needed to get my fingers clean.

I used two shades of brown, only the light shade is washed with some water. White is used for the sunlit parts of the tree roots.

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

The base, beech tree

 

A few months ago, during our short vacation in Vaals (Netherlands) we made some signposted walks. I have already posted paintings of the views over the hills but of course I have also made reference pictures of trees and tree roots.

This beautiful beech tree had some nice exposed roots, the sunlight caused some highlights and shadows so I had to make a watercolour painting of it.

For the painting I have used only two colours - and not the most obvious ones - for an experiment in 'does this give my painting the atmosphere I want it to have?' and the result pleases me.

Before I made the painting I first made a charcoal drawing

This drawing was used as reference for the painting, just like I did during my latest painting vacation in August. 

And again, the atmosphere of a charcoal drawing is very different from a painting, even with a very limited palette. Still, the results are what I hoped for.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of both the watercolour painting and the charcoal drawing and their availabilities can all be found in my Tumblr blog.