Monday 9 March 2015

30 years of Trees

Morton Bay Fig, pen sketch 1984
I love drawing trees. I have used the original sketches drawn on location for etchings, large paintings and book illustrations. A few weeks ago I went to the Blue Mountains and chose to sketch trees. Here are some from over the years.

Morton Bay Fig etching 1984.

Above is one of my first tree studies, drawn on location on a cold day about 30 years ago. I used a sketch nib in a fountain pen. The tree is still in the Botanical gardens but does not look as healthy these days.

I used the tree sketch to create a series of etchings. This is one of them. I also printed them in a sepia ink which looked great :-)


(Later, in about 1990,  I did a large painting in bright coloured inks drawn with a dip pen. It sold when first exhibited and I don't even have a photo of it but I'd be interested in doing something similar again with the Da Atramantis inks I have been enjoying so much.)




One of the etchings was on display in our home in Singapore and our friend Steve Stine asked if I'd like to illustrate a book - about a tree.

An imaginary forest - illustration from Kayla & the Magical Tree.



That was in May 2003 and in December 'Kayla & the Magical Tree' was published by Times editions, Singapore. There were a lot of tree-inspired images in it!


I did a series of imaginary landscapes in the early 2000s based on a painting from years earlier. These combined the idea of gum trees with the leaves the I loved to walk through in the Fall when we lived in the US and were created using a mixture of Indian Ink, watercolour and Chinese pigments. Sadly, the yellow, which was pure gamboge, has faded. It's one of the reasons I am so determined to only use light-fast pigments. 




I spent many hours sitting on an old stone wall at Ta Prohm temple in Cambodia in 2003, sketching this wonderful tree. It is difficult to tell whether the tree is pulling the building apart or holding it together after so many hundreds of years. 
I did a full-sheet painting of the temple, for my brother, later that year, though in many ways I prefer the sketch. It has more memories attached of conversations with the locals in the temple, and the heat and the atmosphere. Nothing beats sketching from life.




I spent a day in July sitting by this tree between Thredbo and Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains a few years ago. It's such a lovely shaped snow gum. The sketch is in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook. 

Later I repainted it on a much larger watercolour paper. This is the finished painting, and also a limited edition print.





During the same ski holiday I sketched this tree in Thredbo
village. It's remarkable that even in winter, with snow on the ground, we can sketch en plein air in Australia.






I really enjoyed this Morton Bay Fig. Sketched in Hyde Park, Sydney, in an A5 Moleskine on a lovely day out with the Urban Sketchers in 2013.
These studies were painted on National Tree Day. Both A5 Moleskine sketchbook studies.













I went away for the weekend in the Blue Mountains in February this year and painted these trees. The first is an ink and watercolour A4 sketch in a lovely mossy spot called Mermaid's Cave. This gnarled tree was perfect for some ink line-work.













Then we sat in a cafe and painted the trees we could see from the Magalong Valley Tea Rooms.

Trees in ink. I don't think I'll ever tire of them :-)

 #art4all







15 comments:

  1. I never tire of trees either. Thanks so much for sharing. They are beautiful... full of the character of each individual tree.

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    1. Thank you. I feel the same about leaves - full of character. I don't know how many leaves I've drawn and painted over the years. Perhaps I'll put them all together in a post :-)

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  2. Such lovely trees. They are unlike trees in my part of the world. But trees are always facinating.

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    1. Many of our Aussie trees are really straggly but when the bark falls off the gum trees each year they are gorgeous. It's an up-side-down country - your trees lose their leaves, ours lose their bark :-)

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  3. Gorgeous drawings, Jane. Your work is inspiring me to get out today and draw a tree, something I used to do often but has fallen by the wayside. Thanks for the push to draw.

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    1. That's lovely to know Jo. They are a wonderful subject.

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  5. You capture the soft grey of the trunks beautifully Jane. Please tell me your secret formula.

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    1. Ray many years ago I started to mix up Burnt Sienna + Ultramarine in a custom mix and let it dry in the pan/palette ready for use. I mix it to a just-blue grey that I call Jane's Grey, a bit of a pun on Payne's grey. If you search my Blog or Google Jane's Grey, you'll see a post with the exact recipe. I now mix it in huge 60ml tubes every couple of months! I also use a lot or Raw Umber for the shadow on trees. (Daniel Smith paints).

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  6. Wow, Jane, these are beautiful! Even the early sketch from over 30 years ago shows what a wonderful artist you are. I think my favorite here is the imaginary one of the gum trees (the one where you said the pure gamboge has faded). I love the magical quality, the colors, and the effect on the ground that reminds me of burned paper. Is that from the Indian ink?

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    1. Thank you Susan. I did quite a series of those imaginary trees. The 'burnt' effect is the Indian ink, which is waterproof, so reacts with the watercolour. Creates great effects :-)

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  7. Incredibly beautiful, every one having its own personality. You are a master of trees!

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    1. Thank you Vicky. I love to paint trees and leaves in particular - both make wonderful subjects for different reasons.

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  8. Very lovely work again... Love those colour!!!

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