Sketching Tips 7) Sketching foliage

Foliage

It’s been a while since I last gave a ‘lesson’ and so please let me start with a reminder of my usual caveat. I’m totally self taught, and all I can tell you is about my way of doing things. I’m not recommending it as the right way or the best way, just explaining that this is how I do it, in the hope that this might help. 

Now, most of the time foliage – by which I mean trees, bushes and grasses – is definitely not the ‘star’ of my sketch. I’m not deiberately dissing foliage here, but I’m a city boy originally, and what I find excites me is achitecture, machinery and people. So I tend to keep to limit the foliage to outlines with a few light shading marks. This usually provides a nice contrast with the actual object of the sketch. For example, in the sketch of a bridge in Aberavon below, the lightly sketched grass and the sky together frame the bridge, which is the real ‘star’ of the picture. A few vertical or almost vertical strokes do a good job of conveying the suggestion of grass to the eye.

In a similar way, in the sketch below which shows Pontrhydyfen Aqueduct, the darkness of the stone contrasts with the outlines of the forestry, which have not been shaded at all. To keep it light, I sketched in a few areas of shadow, but merely left them as outlines, which is a technique that I find can work particularly well when you’re trying to sketch in trees and bushes.

A couple more examples of me using this technique are these two sketches:-

The British Lion Pub Cwmavon. In this sketch I’ve even included outlines of some of the larger leaves, but again, none of the foliage is actually shaded, because the building is the focus, not the trees.

I like this sketch below, of Dyffryn Rhondda Post Office in the Afan Valley, because there is a contrast between the trees on the right, and the grassy hill side on the top left of the sketch.

Now, this minimalist technique for sketching foliage is fine when you are making a building, or something else the focal point of the sketch. However there may be times when you want to sketch the foliage itself in more detail.

This is a sketch of the disused Cynonville Railway Station. The track was ripped up decades ago, and the station now is on the route of a cycle path from Afan Argoed Country Park. Its leafy, overgrown appearance is very much the point of what I wanted to show about it.

As with the bridge picture, I’ve used vertical, or near vertical lines to show grass. However, as you can see I’ve applied far more shading to the bushes. If I was really focusing on the hut, then I’d just have only drawn the outlines of the shaded patches, and not all of them either for that matter. With this amount of shading you just can help but be struck by how overgrown the place is, and the hut itself seems to be merging into the foliage, which is very much the idea that I wanted to convey – that the trees and grasses are slowly reclaiming the land.  

Then there’s this sketch I made of my own back yard:-

If you look at it closely, you can see that it’s actually an inversion of the way that I usually depict foliage in a sketch. The buildings are lightly shaded, where shaded at all, while there’s heavy shading on the bush, and many of the individual leaves are sketched and even some of their marking details are sketched in. And the reason is that when I made the sketch, I felt that the bush was as much the ‘star’ of the picture as any other element.

A few random points

If foliage is not the most important element of the sketch:-

·       The more shading of the foliage that you do, the more you will draw attention towards the foliage and away from the main elements of the sketch, which isn’t what you want to do.

·       You can get good effects by simply sketching in the outlines of blocks of foliage, and also the outlines of areas of shading.

·       A few vertical, or near vertical lines sketched close together can give the appearance of grassy areas.

If foliage is one of the most important elements of the sketch:-

·       Sketch in areas of shading. As with many things, the more different gradations of shading you use to suggest lighter and darker areas, the more detailed your foliage will appear.

·       Heavy shading tends to make foliage appear denser, bushier and more overgrown if this is the effect that you want to achieve.

·       You can achieve some very appealing effects by using areas of dark shading around negative space in the shape of individual leaves, especially if the background to the tree or bush itself is lightly sketched in.

One Sketch #111) Afan Argoed and River Afan

On Afan Argoed's paths
I'm never lonely,
There's plenty pass on bikes
Or Shanks's pony.

The drought has seen the River Afan wane
Shrinking underneath the steelworks' cranes.

This morning I was on a bit of a time budget, scheduled as I was to look after my 3 year old granddaughter from 12. So I started off making a quick ink sketch of the River Afan. Actually I did wonder if it would be quite a bit lower, bearing in mind that it's weeks since we saw a significant amount of rain. After that though I drove up the Afan Valley to the Afan Argoed Country Park. It's a bit of a mecca for mountain bikers. I'm not, but I don't mind a nice hike, and the walk along where the old railway line up to Cymmer used to be is particularly nice.

I still made it back in time for Mimi, and we had a lovely time painting together, thanks for asking.

One Sketch #110) (Friday 13th July) Gossip Girls

One of the seaside's rather common sights
A group of ladies put the world to rights.

It was my wife who suggested this one. She saw the ladies sat on the bench on Friday lunchtime in Porthcawl and couldn't resist taking a sneaky snap on her phone. Half of me would really have liked to have known what they were discussing, and then the other half really wouldn't. Enjoy it while it lasts, ladies. I've 7 more working days, then the summer holidays from school start. Going by the experience of previous years that will be the end of the glorious weather we've been having.

One Sketch #109) The Incredible Hulk

Although, perhaps he isn't always good
He isn't evil, just misunderstood.

Ok - I don't like copying another person's artwork if I can avoid it. To be fair, this I sketched based on a CGI image from one of the films, rather than original artwork from the comments. Basically it was to answer a challenge from a class I taught today, and having made the sketch the temptation to say - that's today's sketch sketched was just too great to resist.

I'm not entirely sure why the Incredible Hulk was suggested as a subject, but ironically he was the star of the comic I used to read every week when I was a kid. Marvel comics didn't really make any kind of impression in the UK until the early-mid 1970s, when they launched a number of British comics reprinting stories from the original American comics from the 60s. I had Mighty World Of Marvel delivered every week. Headline story was always the Hulk here, whom I liked. Middle pages were Daredevil - not bad. Third feature, the Fantastic Four, whom I loved.

One Sketch #108) George Michael

Not good enough
This sketch, and what a cost
The world cup semi final -
England lost.

Right, I can't bear to watch England play football in a serious tournament. Last week I painted Laurel and Hardy instead. It was a pretty good picture, and England won. On Saturday I painted Marilyn Monroe, and England won. So I asked for suggestions who to paint during the semi final rather than watching it, and my daughter's mother-in-law suggested George.

Well, we lost.

I don't blame Angela for one minute. No, I blame myself. It's just not quite as good a painting as the previous two. I can only apologise to my countrymen and women.

One Sketch #107) Traditional Cuckoo Clock

Isn't it ironic
That a bird which builds no nest
Should find such ornate housing
Is the kind he likes the best?

Apropos of nothing my wife, out of the blue, mentioned yesterday her grandmother's cuckoo clock. As it happened I remembered this item quite well. It was very like the one in the picture - a traditional birds and leaves design, with a little blue and yellow bird which had stopped coming in and out and cuckooing before I came on the scene. They're funny things, aren't they, cuckoo clocks? I mean, they are just a tiny bit ridiculous. . . and yet, I really rather like them. As for my wife's Nan's clock, well, sadly she passed away well over 20 years ago and I have absolutely no idea where it ended up.

One Sketch #106) Dolce Gusto Coffee Machine

I'll drink another cup
Its rich and bitter virtues
Will caress my senses
Into wakefulness,
And lo, with a sublime taste
The day begins anew.

This is my beloved Dolce Gusto coffee machine. Alright, beloved is maybe a little strong. I know that there are other brands out there - I've had a Tassimo in the past - which produce coffee which tastes as good. But I do like the Dolce Gusto. This was second hand when we had it, but I tell you what, it don't half make a good cup of coffee. I've never been a tea drinker, me, always a coffee drinker, ever since my Nan got me drinking it when I was small. Back then it was instant, and I'll be honest, I was only really drinking it for the two teaspoons of sugar she used to put into it. Then, when I was about 15, I decided that all of that sugar couldn't be good, and so I gave it up, and forced myself to drink coffee without it. For 3 months I hated every cup, but by the end of that time I realised one day that I was now drinking it and enjoying the taste of the coffee, and that's when I really became a coffee lover. Since then I've graduated from Maxwell House to Nescafe to Gold Blend. Then from Gold Blend to a filter coffee machine. That was better, and I was known to use a cafetiere at times. But nothing. . . nothing I used to use ever produced a cup anything like as good as my Dolce Gusto.