Tag: tree

Sketching in Biscayne National Park

During our time in South Florida, we used a campground in the Everglades as our base and visited nearby parks. One of those was Biscayne National Park, where we spent a day exploring.

The boardwalk goes out a spit of land into the bay. At the end we could see a lot of water birds, looking for their dinner. As with so many water-centric drawings, I feel that this sketch would be drastically improved with a splash of color added… Still on the boardwalk, I had fun sketching the trail itself (though here it’s a rocky trail and not a wooden sidewalk). Ashley enjoyed the view over the water while patiently waiting for me.

Though we didn’t get to take a boat out to the Keys, we did visit while Park after Dark was being held, so we waited around until dusk for the festivities to begin. A couple hours at the picnic table resulted in this palm tree sketch.

Sketching in Congaree National Park

After wrapping up Ashley’s contract at the hospital, we headed to Congaree National Park in South Carolina. With only about 20 miles of hiking trails we only visited for two days (especially since we don’t have a canoe/boat to explore the waterways) but while there I quickly added some more sketches to the little black moleskine.

While checking out the boardwalk, we heard, and saw! three owls that were talking back and forth quite expressively. They were too far away for me to sketch, but I did get a quick sketch of the boardwalk itself, meandering through the flood plane with cypress trees (and their knees sticking up!)

This fabulous national champion Loblolly Pine was right next to the trail and I scribbled its outline in just a few moments before we continued on and I added in the bark texture and root details while walking.

Though there is no RV overnighting available, there are two tent campgrounds. We were able to snag a site for the night and leave the RV at the visitor center. Here’s a couple minute sketch of our home for the night.

While hiking out to the Congaree river, I sketched this image. The trail meandered through the flood plane, between the towering old-growth trees. During our lunch break on the river bank I added some details and shading with the marker.

Sunset Trees

I suppose they could be Sunrise Trees, if you prefer that time of day!

Another of the subjects that I draw regularly are trees, specifically in front of sunset. Here are a few paintings in that vein from a bit of colorful playtime.

The first two combine a few recurring subjects – the borders (specifically the corners), the trees in front of the sun, and that specific way of drawing a sun with the lined “rays” radiating out from them. Of course, I normally do all of these things in a drawing – so this is the colored version of that concept. Additionally, the rounded branches was a new style that I was playing with.

In the above I was playing with texture, using angular hatched lines to fill in the background. And while both of these are acrylic paintings, below I was experimenting with the medium, pursuing a looser, more watercolor-like feel. Along with that looseness I also varied the borders – not sure which I like more, but the varying widths certainly give drastically different feelings to the paintings!Finally, this unique tree was painted at the same time as the orange-skied cityscape and was yet another experiment. I find the delicate, bare branches of trees beautiful and fascinating as they are silhouetted by the sky – and that’s generally how I portray them. Adding leaves is relatively rare, and these stylized, swirls of foliage was an experiment in color and style.

Each of these is painted on 8×10″ cold-rolled watercolor paper with acrylic paints.