This first exercise of project 5 was quite difficult. Trees are a complicated subject, and when I approached it for the first time in the drawing course about a year ago, I was bogged down by the feeling of inability to capture and reproduce what I saw. In the meantime, I drew and painted an occasional tree or groups of trees, but didn’t focus on the topic. So I anticipated it would be a challenge again. I devoted two weeks to this exercise. This is way too long in terms of keeping up with the course schedule, but I know that I have to invest time if I want to improve. Overall, I think there are tiny steps forward in that I’m getting a bit closer to capture what I see, but there’s still a long way to go.

Reflections on my drawings for this exercise

My painting style with watercolours has loosened up somewhat. I think this began during project 4. In particular, cloud painting helped me with this. I’m still in the process of finding the balance between putting in enough detail and working generously, and I think the style should be still looser, but I feel the direction I’m taking is right for me.

During work on this exercise, I took a sketchpad with me for lunch break whenever time permitted, so some of the drawings are made from life rather than from photo source. I managed to find some spots midtown New York where I felt safe enough to draw in public and I enjoyed the experience. In particular, the UN Garden which is at 5 minutes walking distance from my work place offers a nice view over the East River and there are some trees. It will be too hot in summer because no shade is available, but for now it was ok.

I also painted trees opposite from my terrace. Overall I feel now slightly more comfortable when painting with limited equipment so I think chances are that I’ll be painting outdoors more often.

One big difficulty for me with painting trees or landscape views is that I’m horribly impatient. Most of the time I’m in a stressed mood and not able to calm myself down sufficiently for making fine and detailed marks to capture all the intricate details of a scene. I realize that I observe only briefly and want to capture broad lines, but then most of the paper remains white and I get nervous about how I might fill it with marks. I guess this impatience is why I get along quite well with charcoal – it rapidly fills a sheet with expressive marks, and it doesn’t support fiddling with details.

Towards the end of the series, I think there was some improvement in how I captured the shapes, colours and tonal values of trees, both in drawing and painting. All in all, I think there’s still quite a way to go for me, but for now I’ll leave it at that and try to catch up with the course schedule.

Initial studies: Terrytown lake

Recently I was on a business outing with my collegues, and while they were enjoying themselves kayaking on the lake, I took the opportunity for a walk through the forest around the lake, sketching and taking photos. I drew an uphill view of huge rocks amidst the woods. While sketching, I wasn’t satisfied because I found the rocks and other elements of the scene difficult to recognize, but now I like the sketches for their abstract qualities and expressive lines. I also made a quick sketch at the railway station while I waited for the train back home.

  

Next day at home I went through my photos and selected one of a tree trunk with very interesting bark texture. I made pencil sketches and a quick watercolour of it, but felt that it all looked artificial and did not capture the bark’s qualities nor the atmosphere of the scene. I did not know how to tackle this differently so proceeded to another subject.

 

  

   

I selected a photo of a view through the woods and made a sketchbook study in coloured pencil and wash which I found more successful. I think I like it better when I manage to achieve more resemblance, although I really struggle to keep up concentration for this.

   

Over the following two weeks, I went out drawing during office lunchtime. In the evenings I was too tired for painting, but I did continue work on the exercise on the weekend. Two themes emerged: Studying singular trees, and studying groups of trees embedded in some context. I worked alternatingly on both themes, sometimes from life and sometimes from photo sources. I will group my works by theme for the discussion.

Single tree studies

I spotted Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza in Midtown New York as a place where I could make little sketches during lunchtime. These three sketches were made on different days. It wasn’t on purpose but apparently I was interested in the structure of the main tree trunk and its first branching. I shyed away from the foliage, too complex a subject for the short lunch break.

   

 

At home, I selected a photo from 2013 of a single tree at the Brooklyn Cemetery, and made a charcoal study in the sketchbook. I’m quite satisfied with it, because it looks  complete as a tree without being fiddly or overworked. In my notes, I mentioned that I began to see “foliage masses”, areas of lighter and darker tones within the overall shape of the tree. I think there are signs of this visible in the sketch. I also tried a watercolour of that tree. The mixing of greens is nice, but the placement of light and dark tones is a bit arbitrary and an aspect I have to work on.

      

I selected a second photo of a single tree, one with foliage in autumn colours. In my notes I stated that the painting was overworked, but by now I find it quite vibrant. I noted that I might benefit from painting the tree again, trying to paint more fluidly and generously. A week later I made a second version, deliberately trying to work wet in wet rather than pre-mixing colours. I think the colours came out better in the first one, but this may be due to lack of practice with painting wet in wet and mixing colours on the paper. I think the wet in wet technique helps to loosen up the overall style and supports the unique qualities of watercours.

     

Groups of trees in context

One weekend, I painted the view from my terrace over to the trees at the opposite side of the street. It was a very bright day and I struggled to adapt my eyes when switching from the sunlit upper parts of the trees to the lower areas in shade that were hardly recognizable. I now understand that the process of adapting the eyes to the different light situations was actually detrimental for the painting, because I painted the lower areas much too bright and so the painting lacks the lower dark tones for good contrast.

     

I also made some quick sketches of trees on the street. The sheet looks unfinished and chaotic, but with hindsight I realize that I was working on foliage masses and making the separation between trees more recognizable by adding darker values.

Another attempt at capturing the tonal values that separate single trees in a group was made in the oil pastel sketch after photo source (a park view from Berlin, taken 2011). I liked the perspective effect of the large trees in the foreground and the small ones at a distance, which also had paler tones and weaker contrasts. But the oil pastels as a medium did not work for me here. I think the sketch is underworked as a result of my reluctance to fill up the paper with the oil pastel medium.

Over the following week, I made some sketches from life. One was at Tudor park in Midtown Manhattan, made with Jet black pencil on A4 paper. I like this one because I  managed to fill some more of the paper with marks in different tones, which creates some depth. The other sketches were made at the UN garden, where I focused on a northbound view towards a group of trees with some high-rise buildings in the background and the East River and Ed Koch bridge to the right. In between, I made a little sketch of the Henry Moore statue which has a temporary place in the garden without proper inscription, but I recognized Henry Moore’s style.

  

  

The actual watercolour painting of the view was made at home after a photo which I took while on location. What I like about this painting is that it captures the very bright summer light. I’m not quite sure how this was achieved, but I think it’s the combination of rather pale colours with very dark shaded areas.

I also like how I painted the sky with clouds. I started with the light grey tone for shades and then used a middle blue tone for the sky, leaving out the larger cloud area as white of the paper. I like this technique better than using kitchen towel to take off paint. Compared to the tree view off my terrace, I painted much darker tones for the shadowy tree areas and I think this works much better. Only the dark block below the second tree to the left doesn’t work at all, although it’s quite similar to what I saw, which was just very dark without any internal structure.

Two contrasting paintings that feature trees

From my works for this exercise, I’d select the second version of the single tree at Brooklyn Cemetery, and the group of trees at the UN garden. I think the palette roughly matches the actual colours of the scenes, better for the group of trees and less so for the single tree. But the single tree is already too densely painted and it wouldn’t help to add more layers of colour on top.

    

To conclude, I think this was an important but very difficult exercise due to the complexity of the subject. The main progress may be in heightened awareness for the difficulties, rather than actual improvement. But I hope I’ll get better with time.