Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Sunset Hill Cherries Redux (Abstraction Homework)

 

3/21/24 cherry trees, Sunset Hill neighborhood (Inktense Blocks)

3/21/24 Inktense Block and Inktense pencil

After sketching them last week, I had two reasons to go back to the Sunset Hill cherry trees: One was that they were not quite at peak then, and I wanted to see them when they were (and boy, were they ever!). The second was that I wasn’t too happy with my gouache sketch that time, and I wanted another try.

Freshly inspired by the previous day’s class on abstracting landscapes, I combined that idea with the minimalism practice from the previous week’s class. With wet media like gouache, I’m always tempted to paint roundish blobs to evoke the shape of blossom clusters, but it never looks good to me. Using only Derwent Inktense Blocks (black and magenta) and a pink Inktense pencil, I squinted my eyes at those fairyland trees to minimize details and drew only the main trunk lines and the haze of blossoms. I like these attempts much better.


Peak blossoms!

Fairyland comes alive!

My favorite tree on this block... more for its amazing roots than its blossoms.


2 comments:

  1. You've got some awesome trees to work from. I like the abstracted look. It is hard to resist doing small blob-like petals because we see such wonderful clusters. Good job!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks -- glad you like these! They were kind of a push for me, but I like them, too.

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