My Tree

Hi Everyone,

This week, I managed to catch up on another bonus lesson from week 7 of Life Book 2016 - The Art of Black & White with the legendary Donna Downey. Donna encouraged us to experiment with using only black, white and shades of grey to make a picture.

There is a tree in my garden, just outside my workroom window. I love trees, and I really enjoy watching this one in particular as it changes through the seasons. In the summer, it provides a shady canopy to sit under, throwing dappled sunlight onto the seat below. At the moment, it's still bare of leaves, but its bark is a beautiful silvery colour, with moss and lichen growing on it in places.

It was quite a challenge to use only black/white/grey but I really enjoyed working on this and eventually I was very happy with the result ...


 I started with a rough pencil sketch, then outlined with Inktense water soluble pencil and used a watery brush over the lines to start adding some shading. It was too cold to sit outside and work from life, so I took a photo to help me ...



I used several different media to try to indicate the texture of the bark and add more depth - Caran d'Ache Neocolour II and Derwent Art Sticks which are both water soluble crayons, Faber Castell Pitt Pens, Prismacolour pencils, Wispa markers, graphite pencil and Stabilo china marking pencils - so this really was a very mixed media project, although there is no colour in it.

Here's a closer look at the texture and detail ...


It was great to flex my "proper drawing" muscles again too - something I haven't done for a long time - I may have a go at some still life and figure drawing using the same techniques. 

Thanks for visiting my blog today. I hope you are all enjoying a happy Easter weekend wherever you are and whatever you're doing. I ust ate chocolate for breakfast, so mine is off to a good start! :o)

See you again soon

Annie xxx

Comments

Aimeslee Winans said…
Very nice work. xoxo
It looks just like the real thing! You did so well with this Annie, the shading is perfect, and you wrote so beautifully about the tree. Wishing you a Happy Easter!