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| 10/12/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Canson Montval 140 lb. paper |
Yesterday Peggy Haug
offered me some tips on making my trees look more dimensional. I think of Peggy
as a tree-sketching goddess, so you can bet I listened. She suggested that I
look for the shaded side of the tree, which isn’t always easy to see,
especially when being dazzled by lots of brilliant colors. I looked back at my recent
tree sketches with a critical eye and suddenly saw what she was talking about:
I got so interested in all the bright hues that I had been forgetting that the
same rules of light and shade still apply.
Eager to give her tips a try, I went out in the late
afternoon, when I knew the low sun would be hitting a stand of maples on
Northeast 75th Street just right. I parked on an inclining side
street to sketch the reddest of the maples. (Yes, the sky looks blue and clear,
but it was still too chilly to sketch outside the car!)
Peggy, how’d I do?
Hey Tina! You are such a quick study!! You see what I was talking about. It's a great sketch because we can see the form of the tree - not just a flat circle of color. I'm thrilled with the sketch - and if you really want to see how much better you are, look at one of your tree sketches from one year ago.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Peggy -- I have a long way to go, but it does feel good to look back at my old trees!
DeleteLooks like you really listened to Peggy and gave the tree dimension. The shading on one side of the tree really makes a drastic change in the form of the tree. Sorry it was so cold for your sketching time. We lucked out yesterday with perfect weather at the park.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joan -- I appreciate your comments! At least the sun came out today!
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