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Start Art 5 30 RT START www.painters-online.co.uk CREATING A SPINNEY OF DISTANT TREES This is my technique for producing convincing trees. I’ve labelled it ‘cloud spotting’, which is something I’m sure we’ve all done at some time, trying to make shapes out of the clouds as we see them floating overhead. The principle is exactly the same for trees –we make abstract shapes on the paper and look for tree shapes in them. Start with some diluted blue, flood the brush, then touch it on a paper towel. This will remove the excess moisture and help with the dragging effect. Hold the brush as in the photograph on page 29, and drag it towards you. This part takes a little practise to get the moisture content right. Quickly connect some of the marks whilst wet to form the tree canopy. Now look at the marks and imagine which ones might be turned into trees. Feed more paint into these whilst wet. Mixing a little blue into the red makes a nice brown; super greens are created with the yellow and blue. I have created two partly finished rows of trees for you to look at. In Figure 1, I have added just a few darks to the marks on the right, but already you can see trees forming. Figure 2 is a little more finished, but I have still left the original strokes on the left. Have a look and see which of the other strokes resemble trees. PAINTING A SUMMER MEADOW Creating large trees in full leaf is exactly the same painting process as the spinney. However, this is where studying the real thing helps you to paint a more convincing image. Although my painting will not be exactly like my summer tree sketch on page 29, there will be elements that are similar. This technique is the most successful if steps 1 and 2 are carried out fluidly and quickly without allowing the tree to dry. 1 Take a clean sheet of paper. Mix some blue with a touch of red and charge the brush. Touch on a towel to take out excess moisture. Hold like a violin bow and drag the brush towards you. At this stage the picture should look something like Stage 1, just an abstract shape. 2 Whilst the surface is still wet, feed darks into the shadow areas. Referring to my original pencil sketch, I noticed a lot of darks at the base of the tree and in the core where the mass of the trunk rises unseen. Using a size 8 brush, draw in a few branches and twigs. Stronger darks can be made by combining all three colours (Stage 2). 3 When the surface is bone dry, create a large wash of ultramarine blue. Flood the brush and starting at the top of the paper, Figure 1 Here I have added just a few darks to the right-hand marks to start to create the impression of a few trees Figure 2 Here the impression of the trees on the right is even more convincing after a few more darks and brushmarks have been added. You can still see the origin of these tree shapes in the scumbled paint marks on the left