TREES
Link to Jean Lurssen You Tube:
Painting Loose Trees
Link to Oliver Pyle You Tube
Painting Trees in watercolour part 1
Painting Trees in watercolour part 2
Look out for his comments on painting 'greens' at around 55min into the video (part 2)
Painting Loose Trees
Link to Oliver Pyle You Tube
Painting Trees in watercolour part 1
Painting Trees in watercolour part 2
Look out for his comments on painting 'greens' at around 55min into the video (part 2)
LINKS TO AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE WATER COLOUR PAINTING VIDEOS:
- Boranup Forest and the Watercolour Society of West Australian (You Tube)
- Ev Hales Painting an Australian Landscape "Watch this rocky landscape painting demonstration using watercolour medium. Under-washes of colour assist with variation in the rock formations and ensures visual interest. Add to that fascinating brush technique to create the structure and textures of the rocks and you have an interesting and informative demonstration. This rocky landscape is Australian but techniques are relevant to all rocky landscapes the world over"
AVOID TREES THAT LOOK GENERIC OR PASTED ON
The visual form of a tree, both its species and its unique character, is defined by:
SIMPLIFY BUT DON’T STYLIZE
The outside edge of a tree is extraordinarily complex. Underneath the complexity, however, an overall shape unifies the details and reveals the tree’s unique character. This is the shape we need to see and then draw/paint.
TO SEE THE OVERALL SHAPE OF A TREE
SOFTEN BUT ADD VARIETY
LETTING THE SKY SHOW THROUGH
Source: https://www.outdoorpainter.com/how-to-paint-trees-plein-air/
The visual form of a tree, both its species and its unique character, is defined by:
- its contour,
- its outline.
- The “stuff” inside the edges isn’t nearly as important, especially for trees in the distance.
SIMPLIFY BUT DON’T STYLIZE
The outside edge of a tree is extraordinarily complex. Underneath the complexity, however, an overall shape unifies the details and reveals the tree’s unique character. This is the shape we need to see and then draw/paint.
TO SEE THE OVERALL SHAPE OF A TREE
- Squint at it.
- Squinting simplifies the values, flattens form, eliminates details, and softens colour contrasts. It reveals the major shapes, which we need in order to make intelligent choices about what to include and what to omit in our paintings.
- Don’t be too quick to eliminate the specific twists and turns of a trunk or an odd indentation in the contour of the tree. Capturing some of those quirks in the shape can ensure that the tree appears real.
SOFTEN BUT ADD VARIETY
- Study the trees of masters, such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Claude Monet, and George Inness, and you’ll find that they all keep the contour edges soft. Whether seen against background hills or sky, the contour of a tree is almost always softer in appearance than we think. Bare trees have extremely soft edges, but even a tree in the height of summer, in full foliage, has a soft edge.
- A tree painted with too sharp an outline appears as a flat, cutout shape pasted on the landscape. A soft edge is much more realistic, but the softness needs to be somewhere along the contour, it’s important to create a few sharp, hard edges.
- A variety of edges creates the illusion that some areas of the tree’s contour are closer to the viewer and some are further away.
- In some areas along the contour, the foliage is dense, and in some areas it’s sparse. Some leaves pick up reflections from the sky, lightening the edge, while others create shadows that darken the edge. Suggest this complexity by manipulating the hardness and softness of edges — without having to paint every leaf on every twig.
LETTING THE SKY SHOW THROUGH
- Sky holes convey the unique character of a tree, and, depending on the size of the tree in our composition, offer us opportunities to create interesting value patterns.
- Prioritize importance: Study how sky holes appear in nature. They are not random, but are related to the form of the tree (the masses of foliage and the growth of branches). It’s extremely difficult to invent sky holes that look natural. Instead, study trees in the landscape, and then choose the sky holes that are most essential to the composition. Some sky holes will be important (usually the larger ones), some secondary, and some can be omitted entirely.
- Darken values: Sky holes are small, light-value shapes surrounded by darker values. If painted the same value as the sky, the darker values of the tree will make the sky holes appear much lighter than the larger sky. For this reason, it’s necessary to darken the value of the sky holes, especially the holes surrounded by dark shadows.
- Create variety: Sky holes shouldn’t all be the same value, nor should they have identical edges. By varying the values and edges of the holes, you can create the illusion of light shining through different thicknesses and densities of foliage, thus enhancing the three-dimensional quality of the tree. For instance, a sky hole adjacent to a large branch or trunk will have a harder edge where it meets solid wood, but softer edges where it meets leaves.
- Vary the values, sizes, colours, and edges of the sky holes and, when painting multiple trees, vary the number of sky holes in different trees, But don’t vary them randomly. Some trees have dense foliage, some sparse. Sky holes function as details that attract the eye and need to be taken into consideration when composing the painting. Use them to create an attractive design that leads the eye where you want it to go.
- A tree in the foreground should read as three-dimensional, but the farther a tree recedes in the distance, the more it appears as a flat, patterned shape. Calling too much attention to the three-dimensional quality of a distant tree can hurt the illusion of deep space in the painting.
- Adjust levels of detail: Typically, the closer the trees, the more visible are the trunks, branches, and individual clusters of foliage or twigs. In this instance, the internal “stuff” becomes important to creating the illusion of reality in the painting. But as a tree moves into the distance, the outline of the entire tree becomes more important and its detailed, three-dimensional appearance less so.
Source: https://www.outdoorpainter.com/how-to-paint-trees-plein-air/