Studying Trees

Yes. A day of studying trees. Today while working on my illustrating project it became apparent, as my focus shifted from my main characters to the backgrounds, there are a lot of trees involved. I needed to explore tree parts and shadows. I also think each picture is going be quite small, so I needed to explore some new mediums.

I set up in my chair with YouTube and began to search pastels. Wandered into oil pastels and saw the lovely detail you can achieve. After awhile I found a teacher, Robert Sloan, that worked slowly and explained every step in a way I could understand, and he had a video on drawing a tree in oil pastels. Yay! I watched it then set to work. Halfway through it I didn't like my tree. I was just going to stop the video and start all over, when the teacher said, "I just keep adding more and more color until I get the look I want." Hmm. I kept going and finished the tree, put it aside and made lunch. During lunch the look of the tree stayed on my mind. I didn't like it. I went to put the dishes in the sink and glanced at the tree on the counter. Mmmm….wow…it's not too bad. I climbed back up on the stool and with the teacher's words still in my head, began to add color and tweak it on my own. The colors were better, but I'm a blender and like a more muted look. Oil pastels act a lot like crayons and give texture. I remembered these paper blending logs in my art box. I used one to blend and mute the leaves. It's not bad, it's not great, but I learned a lot about the behavior of oil pastels in the process. If I had given up and started over, I might never have finished.

It's 4 pm.  I am tired of studying trees.  Heading off to Bikram yoga to stretch my trunk and bend my branches.

And so, as another day goes by, like Pink sings, "You gotta get up and try and try and try" , and….I have written.  Please see the absolutely beautiful post about trees by Colleen Jumper, below.

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