Two ways to look at foliage

I find painting flora very challenging. I live in the Pacific Northwest where there are stands of trees everywhere you look. I love drawing and painting trees, but figuring out how to best interpret them in watermedia is an on-going challenge.

I have been a representational artist for many years. Right now I’m stretching my boundaries and learning how to abstract. This is a wonderful and challenging process that's forcing me to see the world in new ways. In service to this process I’m tinkering with different ways to paint masses of foliage. Here's what I've been working on this week.

"Foliage study #1" (casein)

In the small casein study above I've used a palette knife and calligraphy brush to make random marks that can be seen as leaf groupings.

"Foliage study #2" (watercolor)

In this watercolor study, I've used negative space to create shapes that can be read as non-specific plants and a distant forest scene.

Of the two, I like the second approach much better. It feels like a real place to me, even though it's not, and it reads as harmonious. Painting it was fun and interesting. For me, it's clearly the winner in my little art contest. Funny to think of it that way, but subjectivity IS a big part of art.

Still on silhouettes but currently looking for a change

My watercolor exercises are proceeding nicely. As I’ve been working on essentially the same subject for the past few weeks now – sunrise or sunset colored skies with foreground objects in silhouette - I've decided it's now time to move on to some other exercises. Although I've still got tons of good exercises left to do in my current watercolor book, I also have a few new watercolor books waiting for me at the library (including some by watercolorist David Bellamy!!!) that have me pretty excited.

I’ve chosen to use two spiral-bound Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbooks (9”x12” and 6”x7”) for this series of painting exercises. By keeping my paintings in bound books I’m finding it much easier to keep track of any sequential improvements to my painting. It's also kind of like keeping a watercolor painting journal that will be fun to refere back to later one. ;-)

Here are my most recent paintings.

"Peaceful Evening," watercolor 6"x7"

"Willow Weeps at Night," watercolor 9"x12"

This last painting is a little bit different. I missed pen and ink and one night started doodling a tree. I've been experimenting with brush marks and had some fun adding color to my little drawing after the ink was dry.  

"Tree," pen and ink and watercolor
(This last one is just because I like trees.)

Christmas Painting - “Ferns and Tree”

"Ferns and Tree" by Sara Light-Waller, watercolor 9"x12", 2012

Yesterday was Christmas and I decided to do a painting. We have a lot of ferns growing in the northwestern US where I live and being able to paint them can really come in handy when you’re out sketching. Today’s painting was watercolor enhanced with watercolor pencils in a 9”x12” Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook. This was my first time using the Delta and I was much impressed. It took the paint quite well with relatively little buckling and withstood a moderate amount of scratching with ease. I did almost no scrubbing in this piece but what I did do it handled quite well. Thanks to Stillman and Birn for making such lovely and useful sketchbooks for us artists. :-)

Here’s my sequence for the painting:

Pen & Ink practice

Practicing drawing trees at Chez Jacroux

I have already noticed a few extra benefits to doing a regular comic once again. The routine will improve not only your drawing skills but also your ability to observe the world around you. Secondarily, you will quickly find out what you are weaker at drawing and can then work to improve those particular skills.

I have always been a bit wary of drawing trees and plants. Not that I can’t, but that I try to illustrate sometimes when I should interpret instead. You don’t always need to draw “that particular tree over there.” Instead, it is frequently more valuable (unless you are doing a study of an individual plant) to merely interpret the shape, light qualities and texture of the tree. Often that is enough information to make to tree look “real.” Too much detail can distract and, in some unfortunate cases, destroy the final drawing or sketch.

Tree drawings

Today I was practicing drawing trees in pen & ink. I was also breaking in a new Noodler’s Flex Pen (regular size not Ahab) in the Ivory Darkness color. It was filled with my favorite Noodler’s Lexington Grey ink. The new pen’s nib seemed a bit broader to me than the nibs on my two other flex pens. More like the nib on a Noodler’s Piston Fill but with a flex. Despite my initial surprise at the broadness of the nib, the new pen behaved itself well. I think it’ll be a fine edition to my working collection.

Breaking in my new pen

Noodler's Flex pen in Ivory Darkness color.
The pen color is striated in black and white.