Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Trees and sketching

Top of the drive
pen and ink 6 x 8

I am part of a group created by Katherine Tyrrell called Sketchercise which is designed to get people moving and to promote sketching. I'm in need of both and made a small start this evening. I have guests so its difficult to go far right now and a cold isn't helping breathing, so slow steps this week. The sketch is the turning point of the driveway of my house. There are many many trees, some areas completely inpenetrable in thickness, but they add to the privacy, not that its really needed here as I'm already out in the middle of nowhere!

Once small people are gone home again I will start in earnest to get back into running again, provided the body cooperates. Or at least brisk walking.

The trees will also be part of a challenge that Vivien Blackburn of painting, prints and stuff has set to draw or paint trees from life. I don't think there'll be any need to search for suitable models for that challenge. however trees, like flowers, scare me and I tend to avoid them for the most part. This could be just the thing to push me to conquer that fear.

9 comments:

Valerie Jones said...

This is a lovely drawing, Jeanette!

FitFoodieMegha said...

Wonderful work with only pen and ink..:)

Jo Castillo said...

I like the negative space used to shape the trees. Nice work.

vivien said...

well for something that you feel unsure of you've made a great start! nice variety of textures going on there :>)

I'm really glad you are joining in

Rhonda Bartoe Tucker said...

Thanks for this post. Been thinking of doing some tree sketches myself lately. But your sketch is lovely and proves you should now have a lot more confidence when sketching a tree.

Robyn Sinclair said...

Beautiful pen work, Jeanette. Now I realise what a slap dash effort I made on some trees yesterday (for the same purpose) :)

Jeanette Jobson said...

Thanks Valerie.

Megha, pen and ink works very well with dense woodsy scenes.

Negative space works in my favour for trees this close together Jo.

Vivien, I'm always less than confident when it comes to trees. Lack of practice on them I'm sure.

I hope you can do some too Rhonda, I'd love to see how different people tackle trees. It would be a learning experience.

Robin, its very time consuming (for me) to draw trees in a setting like this. I can do a quick impression, but then get caught up in the details and sometimes overdo it.

Anonymous said...

Simply beautiful.

I love the way it draws my eye into the forest. I've got so many images from hikes that I'd like to paint from, but I always end up with too much detail and turns into a mess. I still haven't learned to "step away from the canvas" and stop.

You have such a delightful balance detail and open space!

Papierflieger said...

I just discovered that one via Jeanette. Really a very inspiring way to draw trees.