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| I took the tree on the left and simplified it to the tree on the right. |
In a previous post on my Pandemic Sketchbooks, Vol. 2, I commented that one benefit of sketching trees is that we learn to simplify. A reader asked if I could go into more detail on that.
Out of all the elements in a landscape, trees are probably the hardest to handle well because they are invariably complex. They often have confusing patterns of light and dark in the leaves, branches that twist this way and that, and then, of course, there is the element of time, which changes all these patterns one is trying so hard to record.
I've never met a tree I didn't need to simplify.
Where does one begin? Here's how I go about it. I don't start by squinting. (Some artists will tell you to squint, but I save that for later.)
- First, I ignore all the branches and twigs. I just want to see the main thrust—the gesture—of the trunk. Does it twist and turn? Is it really two trunks that have grown together? I start my sketch with the trunk.
- Next, I look at the biggest branches, ignoring the smaller ones and twigs. I want to see just the trunk plus those biggest branches. How do they join the trunk? Do they overlap? Are there challenging shapes, such as a branch coming straight at me or an odd one that would seem unrealistic to my viewer? These last ones I omit. I sketch in just the big branches that aren't challenging or odd.
- After that, I look at the smallest branches and twigs. I don't include these necessarily. But if one casts a useful shadow—that is, one that helps define the form of another branch or the trunk—or if it catches a bit of interesting sunlight, I add it.
All the other branches and twigs I leave out.
Until now, I've been ignoring leaves, shadows and any surface texture such as knots and cracks. Now I do squint so I can observe the leaf masses.
- Squinting helps “mass” all those bothersome leaves. On certain trees, such as maples, the leaves grow into large ball-like clumps. This becomes much more obvious if you squint. Each of these shapes will exhibit a lit side and a shaded side, just as an actual ball will. I outline these large shapes right on the branches I've already sketched.
- Next—again, squinting—I look for shadows. On a sunny day, there will be nice form shadows on the trunk and on some of the branches and leaf-clumps. I like shadows that branches cast on the trunk or other branches, because these help define the form of the object they fall on.
- Finally, I look for any interesting cracks, knots or other surface features that will help define the growth of the tree. Two trunks grown together will often have a subtle ridge between them; a branch that fell off years ago will usually leave a dark knot. Some trees have a lot more going on with surface texture than I want to spend time on. For these, I just … simplify and suggest.
Here's a photograph of a dead juniper that I sketched recently. You can see it is a tangled and confusing mass of branches and twigs. Worse yet, the background makes it difficult—at least in the photo—to see what's really going on with the tree. In real life, as I sat before this tree with my two eyes, which make possible binocular vision, it was relatively easy to separate the background from the tree. (This is why I prefer to sketch these complicated subjects from life and not from a photo.)
In this photo, I've tried to make the background easier to handle:
And here is my final sketch of the tree, simplified to show the tree's character. If you're painting a portrait of a person—and, in a sense, this is a portrait of the tree—you don't need to paint all the moles and wrinkles to suggest the person's character.
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| Juniper, 5x8 gouache |
