I have been playing around with trees on and off throughout part 4. This is a log of my studies. Whilst they weren’t completed for the exercise in which I depict trees, they form part of an enquiry in how to depict trees, information that I use in both the exercise ‘Painting from a working drawing‘ and ‘assignment 4‘.
I really like the way trees on the edge of a wood or forest stand out against the blackness of the interior, or in a thinner group of trees, the light makes great negative shapes through the tree trunks. I also did some studies of the trunks against darkness in my sketchbook. As images there are not particularly successful but as an exercise in exploring the theme and different ways to apply paint they have been useful.
I also like the atmosphere of tree shapes in the fog! I haven’t had a foggy day whilst doing this part to go out and explore this further in paint, however I did have the idea of drawing basic tree shapes in charcoal and then covering with gesso in order to paint over the top. The result (before any painting) is quite atmospheric in itself.
Finally I used a some oil on prepared oil paper to create a study of trees with the light shining on the trunks. I am not sure where I was going with this and the study isn’t really finished I just am not sure where to proceed with it.
Painting 1: Practice of Painting 
[…] As I was working from a photograph, my initial sketches were really about finding the shapes that worked and what detail would be ok to leave out. I did a linear study and a colour study and then a tonal study to see if the general composition and overall tones would work. I had also been working on some studies of trees prior to this assignment that whilst not directly related to this piece of work, were useful reference experiments in my sketchbook (access here) […]
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