Art Lesson #37: Drawing Trees, Part One

Let's mix some greens!

a little row of trees I painted for the introduction to The Tree Collectors

We’re going to do four weeks on trees, and everything we learn will also help you draw landscapes and other greenery, whether you’re drawing city scenes or you’re out in nature.

Here’s my plan, subject to change as I hear from you about what you’re most interested in:

Week 1: Mixing greens and developing your own palette of four very different greens. (that’s today)

Week 2: Painting and drawing small trees—the trees aren’t small, but the drawing is. We’ll be adding trees to city scenes, and I’ll probably demonstrate a simple landscape, too. We’ll use watercolor, but also colored pencil or markers if you have them.

Week 3: Larger and more detailed trees, and also mixtures of trees, like what you might see in a park or an arboretum

Week 4: Some loose, abstract views looking up at trees framed against the sky, which is a fun art project that anyone can do, regardless of skill level. I did a lot of these for The Tree C…