Nothing says winter more than bare trees (other than snow of course:) ) and I just love the sight of bare trees in winter standing stoically. It is their fragility evident by their bareness coupled with their strength in bravely facing the elements that attracts them to us. In this post, drawing bare winter trees and winter landscape incorporating them is covered.
Step 1: Draw Outline of a Bare Tree
As you know trees come in limitless variety of shape and sizes, but there are some simple forms that gives a pleasant appearance. Draw an initial outline of tree with 2 main branches as shown below. Drawing outline of bare trees is further discussed here.
After drawing main bifurcating branches, other secondary overlapping branches can be added.
when adding overlapping branches, make the behind branch discontinuous at the intersection point to clearly establish their relative order as shown above. Drawing outline of bare trees is discussed in detail here.
Step 2: Texturing Tree
To bring out the roundness of the tree, texture it using 2 tone technique. In this technique, one end is darkened in a zagged manner as shown below. 2 Tone technique is discussed in detail here and in vol 5 of my pen and ink drawing workbook.
Notice how with simple darkening of one side, form/roundness of trunks and branches is established below.
Step 3: Ground the Tree
Use grass and wild flowers to ground the trunk as shown below. Adding grass is discussed in detail in this drawing grass tutorial.
Step 4: Add Other Foreground Trees
As pen lines are not erasable, it is a good practice to draw the foreground elements first and then draw other elements behind them. Here we add another main foreground tree.
Step 5: Add Other/Background Trees
Add other trees behind the main foreground trees drawn earlier to give a nice feel of wooded area. Technique used is the same. Make sure to leave discontinuity when branches are overlapping.
Step 6: Finish with Other Elements
A distant horizon along with sky gives a finished feel to the drawing.
Other foreground elements like stones, water puddle etc. can be further added to make it more visually interesting.
This completes this tutorial on drawing bare winter trees. Using the steps outlined above winter landscapes incorporating bare winter trees can be easily done from imagination anytime. Following is an example.
If you like content like this, pl. let me know. Also any thoughts on making them better is most appreciated. Drawing is always more fun as a social activity. Do feel free to share this with others and also on your social media.
Have a creative week,
Rahul
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