TREES HAVE SHAPES!

I went to the forest at the end of my street again today. Instead of drawing the forest, I thought I would concentrate just on individual trees. Today, I’m curious about the shapes of trees.

As far as I know most trees have the following parts:

• ROOTS: usually underground and not visible.

• TRUNKS: big and strong, they go up and down.

• BRANCHES: smaller size, they grow out of the trunk.

• LEAVES: leaves are wonderful and come in many shapes!

Because it is early spring, there aren’t leaves on the branches (except the pine trees!). I’m going to draw trunks and branches.

I think it would be rude and not very interesting if I asked a tree (or a person) to tell me a story …but when they started talking, I didn’t listen and I told my own story instead. Maybe it’s a good story but it’s not the tree’s story. SO… I’m going be quiet and listen to the tree. The way I do this is to only draw what I actually see in front of me. Just like I did in the forest.

My supplies today include: chalk, conté pencil, a china marking pencil, charcoal and colored pencils. The reddish drawing was made with the conté pencil. It’s just a fancy colored charcoal pencil. It makes a nice scratchy sound when I draw.

I bring lots of pencils and stuff with me when I go out sketching because the points break or they get used up and have to be sharpened. I made five drawings which you can see in the gallery below.

I drew five trees. There were so many, it was hard to choose: pine trees, a crabapple, an oak tree and another pine tree.

Here’s a tree that Izzy drew. It has a lot of branches!