Project 1
Exercise 3
For this task I drew a collection of trees in my local park. Much of this group of trees was in shadow, as they were large and their foliage was thick, however, there were some patches of light hitting areas of the trunks, leaves and on the floor surrounding the trees.
Similar to some of the previous exercises, there was an image in my head of what I wanted the final product of this exercise to be, and although what I created wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, I think I’ve still done a fairly effective job.
To begin with, I lightly drew in the areas on the page where the separate trees would be. I found this helpful in a number of ways, but predominantly because I always find it difficult knowing where or how to start a sketch, but this simple technique that I produced out of thin air helped wonders as already, I had the base to my sketch.
After lightly outlining the shape of the trees, I used an oil pastel to colour the areas which jumped out to me the most, which just so happened to be the dark tones. I very much went with the flow of this one, trying not to think about it too much. To begin with I was a bit anxious as I thought the blocks of brown and black and grey over the trunk looked rubbish, however, with perseverance and patience I eventually saw that it was working and I could see the first tree forming.
After slowly building upon the tree trunks in the foreground, I moved onto the ones in the background. I wasn’t sure as to how I would portray the perspective of these trees, as they were metres behind the two at the front.
I decided to experiment with this by adopting a less precise formation of tone and to use larger, wider spread lines to lose some of the detail. As these trees were further away, the detail on them was less prominent and capturing this feature is an aspect that I felt was key to the portrayal of distance and perspective.
Looking at the images below, I feel satisfied that I was able to depict the distance between each individual tree and, also, the distance between myself and the trees. Using lighter colours and less accuracy on the detail and structure of the trees in the background was really beneficial to the piece, and through the use of this technique, I think I’ve captured my perspective of them quite well.
Moving on to the foliage, I began by looking at the different areas of colour, tone and the range in depth. Whilst looking at these areas I noticed that there were a wide range of green shades. Also, the trees weren’t all the same type, so their structure and foliage differed. I used the technique practiced in the previous exercise and used different shades of green oil pastels to scribble and quickly add in the different areas and types of foliage. I think this technique displayed the different types of trees quite well, as well as being mindful to adapt the shape and structures of the trunks for each tree type. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on these areas, as I am prone to thinking about the fine details too much, and wanted my choices and movements to be very organic, to see what happened. Interestingly, adding very small amounts of a darker shade in particular areas was really effective in showing depth and shadowing. This may be something that is very obvious to others, however, as someone that is new to work around landscapes and trees, I found this really intriguing.
I was able to depict any areas where the light hit by leaving those patches blank or adding very little detail, if any at all. You are able to see this in areas on the left hand side of most of the trees, and I think this simple technique has worked wonders in helping me portray the appearance of sunlight on the the trees. It has also helped me to depict a sense of realism. To display these areas within the foliage I simply darkened the parts where the light doesn’t quite reach. This is shown clearly in the tree closest to me (foreground, right hand side). I did this by colouring areas of light green for the patches in the sun, and displayed the shadowed areas using dark green, layering it to depict thickness in the leaves.
For a while I wanted to leave it as it is above, however, after staring at it for hours and hours I wasn’t getting the feeling of finality that I have felt with other pieces. I sat with it for a while and decided to move on to another task. After a while, I turned my stress toon back to the piece and decided that there was a lot that I could work on.
Using my pastels I accentuated a number of areas – the thick parts of the foliage, the darker tones upon the trunks, the areas around the bottom of each tree, the tonal range of the grass, and the area deep in the foreground. I had also noticed that the shadows cast by the trees looked very basic, and spending some time on them was a decision that did this piece the world of good.
After this last burst of effort and inspiration I’m feeling far more satisfied. It’s amazing to see that I am already making progress within this area of design. As someone who has never really taken much time to sketch a tree or landscape, I was extremely apprehensive about these exercises and wasn’t expecting much from the final outcome. That being said, it’s completely mind blowing to see how much progress I have made in the space of only three exercises.
Re-work
After speaking with my tutor regarding this piece, she advised me on a few tips and techniques to improve upon it. These were things that I hadn’t necessarily thought of, however, now that I am aware of them and have made the changes, I can see that they were really quite important to portraying a successful feel of depth and realism within the piece.
The two main things that my tutor brought to my attention were the trees in the background and the shadows cast by the trees on the ground.
In the previous version of this piece all of the trees maintained the same sort of appearance. For example, the trees in the foreground, middleground and background all had the same texture and sharpness, giving a strong impression that they were all at the same level. To depict a sense of depth and distance my tutor advised that I use a cotton pad to smudge the features of the trees in the background. This worked wonders. You can see that I have applied this technique to all of the trees apart from the two in the foreground. I have subtly smudged the foliage and the trunks to blur them slightly, and lessen the severity of their features. This really helped me portray the depth that I had struggled to show in the previous attempts.
Moving onto the shadows on the ground. My tutor advised me that the black that I had used for these shadows was quite severe and that I should lessen them by adding a shade of green on top. I have done this, however, I’ve also used the same technique as above and used a cotton pad to smooth the pastel and blend it away. This really, really changed the piece. Before it was very sharp and scribbly, but, by smoothing out these severe scribbles and strong colours, I’ve managed to depict an even more effective appearance of the shadows cast by the trees.
Jesy Gilkes 