Xfinity Tree

8/20/19 Maple Leaf neighborhood

The day after I spotted the pyracantha, my sketchwalk through the ‘hood led me to a tree that I thought would be more good practice in evoking values in color. (Truth be told, it was the Xfinity truck that caught my eye, so the tree behind it was a convenient bonus). This is the kind of tree that, a few years ago, made me declare all trees my sketching nemesis. Like so many trees, it’s somewhat shapeless, and the large bunches of branches don’t create a distinct pattern. Without much effort, it will turn into a messy green blob.

Once again, I used the same exercise I practiced in my colored pencil class: I chose a green for the middle value, then added warm yellow to the foliage in sunlight and added dark blue to the areas in shade. This time, I think I lost some of the middle value because I was working so hard to retain the sunlit foliage, but I’m OK with that. Two strongly contrasting values are better than three wimpy ones.