Drawing Trees Week 4: Woodlands

March 16, 2022

Stream running through Judy Woods
Pastel

This week’s challenge is to paint or draw trees in a woodland setting. The woodland floor may be a significant part of the painting as in the pastel painting of Judy Woods above. This is a mainly beech wood on a slope, with many ancient trees with haunting shapes and and exposed roots. It seems to breathe mystery.

Ancient Beeches in another part of Judy Woods
Photo by Jo

Another mysterious wood with an entirely different character is Wistman’s Wood on Dartmoor. Here stunted oaks encrusted with moss and ferns emerge from boulders of granite.

Over the last three weeks we have been exploring the shape and structures associated with a variety of trees. In a woodland there will be other considerations as the background may be full of the myriad twigs and small branches of more distant trees. There may be an under-layer of shrubby plants and the floor of the wood is often far from featureless, so part of this week’s challenge will be finding a way to describe the backdrop for the main trees in the composition.

A Winter Wood, Covehythe
Pastel on reddish brown paper
This painting spotlights a single tree with a backdrop of the other trees near the Suffolk coast North of Southwold. The most distant trees are almost a texture of overlapping strokes of pastel pencil. This is a small scale work about A4 size.

Your work may have a single tree or a group of trees as it’s main focus or as in the two examples below be a tapestry of the tree shapes and colours.

After the Fire
In the valley of the Nuns outside Funchal, Madeira a tapestry of blackened Pines and fire bleached Eucalyptus was seen against red rocks about a year after the event. Below a green layer of he undergrowth was already returning.
Charcoal and pastel on terracotta coloured paper 50 x 70cm

May in the Woods, The Pines, Surrey
Another tapestry of trees, this time Pines and Birches
Pastel on brown/grey paper

Perhaps start by coming to grips with the shapes of your chosen woodland, by doing some small preliminary sketches. Think about the composition possibilities at the same time, then plan out your final composition. Think about which medium would suit your purpose and how you are going to use the medium. Also look at the tonal range; is it generally light and airy or dark and mysterious. Then think about the colour. Ask questions; which colours predominate and are there any small areas of colour that add to the composition by their purity, or by their contrast in tone and hue to their surroundings. In the photo of Judy Woods the little speck of a red anorak draws our attention and at the same time gives a sense of scale!

Your paintings;