Drawing a Wooded Area

Drawing a wooded area with pen and ink is always fun to do and one can be done from imagination anytime. It has following 3 main elements:

1. Foreground Foliage: This is the foliage that is in front of the trunks and branches.
2. Visible Trunks and branches:
3. Background Foliage: The foliage behind the trunks and branches.

There are few different ways of drawing a wooded area with pen and ink as discussed below. The approaches differ with regards to the order in which elements are added and the stroke used. This gives a different feel to the resulting drawing.

Video Demonstrations are provided at my YouTube channel. You can click on the links below to see how that landscape is done step by step.

Vol 5 of my pen and ink drawing workbooks provides in depth information on drawing wooded areas. Try it today.

Drawing a Wooded Area: Approach 1

In this approach, we first draw the foreground foliage, then add visible trunks and branches and finally add background foliage as shown below.

Video Demonstration:

Drawing a Wooded Area: Approach 2

Here we first draw a backdrop of foliage and then add dark tapered lines to suggest trunks and branches and finally vary foliage tones to differentiate background and foreground foliage. The approach results in a wooded area with dense feel of foliage.

Video Demonstration:

Drawing a Wooded Area: Approach 3

In this approach, the visible trunks, branches and twigs are drawn first and then foliage added. In the following demonstration, more density of branches and twigs are added to show how this can give a different feel for the drawing.

Video Demonstration:

Drawing a Wooded Area: Approach 4

In the above approaches, foliage is not explicitly associated with a specific branch but is instead used to give an overall feel. In this approach, branches are drawn first and then foliage drawn for a branch to give a different feeling for the drawing.

Video Demonstration:

By changing the density and stroke used for foliage and shape and volume of trunks and branches, many variations on these compositions are possible. Try one today.

Happy Drawing,

Rahul

Tutorials

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