Valley Oak in Coarsegold, California

In our town is an old oak tree that hangs over the road. Ever since we’ve lived here it always catches my eye and I’ve often wanted to draw it.

I’ve taken many photos of it over the years but never actually drawn it till now, and I wondered why.

I recently looked at different photos of the tree I've taken and there are some things about it that stand out to me.

I see it’s been cropped over the years to allow traffic to pass under the branches. This has caused the tree to lean slightly to the left. On the right the branches extend slightly lower to keep it balanced.

The density of the leaves also stands out. You can see the overall thickness of the leaf area, and it seems fairly uniform.

But none of my photos were capturing the overall feeling of the tree I experienced every time I drive past it.

I finally realized why. Most of my photos are too close. They capture the character of the tree, but not why it captures my interest.

The reason I want to draw it is because of its setting: how it hangs over the road, and the features around it.

So I made sure to capture a pano view of the tree using my iPhone, with the interesting elements in the setting. Now I could see how to capture the drawing.

When I got to my computer I cropped it so the tree is at one third of the composition, and right off I noticed how all these lines pointed at the tree! How cool!

Measuring, and Angles, and...

In previous posts I went over measuring and seeing angles.

Now you’re ready to take the next step—seeing shapes.

But first let’s look at the basic measurements for drawing this tree. As I mentioned before, I want to capture more than just the tree and its texture. I want to capture the setting of the tree in the scene here in Coarsegold.

I can see the tree is more than one half but less than two thirds of the scene, and is about one-third as high as it is wide.

This is a good example of how things don’t always line up where you want them. It would be nice if things always sat exactly at one half or two thirds, but they don’t always.

Think Large, Then Smaller

It’s good to be aware that these early marks and measurements are based on how they relate to one half and thirds of the overall scene.

Once I’m confident that the tree is in the right place, I can start focusing my efforts by making sure the angles and shapes of the tree are in proportion to the rest of the tree (not in relation to the whole composition).

This is the standard process that’ll help you the most in all your drawings. Start with the largest limits and have a solid grasp where one half and thirds are, as well as how tall your subject is. (I have an example of this on my YouTube channel drawing Half Dome in Yosemite National Park )

Once these have been placed carefully, future marks can be made with confidence.

Focus on the Tree

As I mentioned above, it’s important to start with the largest measurements.

This has helped me place the tree in the right place. Now let’s start taking measurements of the tree itself.

Always start with one half, then mark the thirds. Then select one of those to see how tall it is. One half of the width is the closest to how tall it is (it’s a little taller than one half).

Now look at the extreme points that make up the outline of the tree and connect those angles.

Next start to look at the shapes that bite into the overall tree shape.

Once I get this far it’s easy to see the shapes I need to sketch in. It seems like a lot has been worked on but I’m just looking at nearby marks and making sure each mark I make is in the right location compared to the other marks I’ve made.

This is when I expand my attention back to the entire drawing, making sure the other elements in the drawing are in proportion as well.

Paying attention to the negative-space shapes around things helps define the shape edges. You can see how some of the objects have shifted once the overall composition became clearer.

This is how it looks when I’ve blocked things in, ready for the next stage. It’s ready to finish in pen & ink or graphite. I could transfer it to a canvas or larger paper for painting, confident that the proportions are right (well, right enough).

It’s a matter of individual style how accurate you want to be. I feel like I’m walking on a tight rope—on one hand I want to be accurate and exact, on the other I’m looking for the sweet spot where I’ve captured the feeling of the scene even though some of the proportions aren’t exact.

Up Next

In the next post I’ll show how I use the last step, values.

A Note About Digital Art.

It’s important to be aware from the start how big you want your drawing. In digital art it’s possible to zoom way in and work on details the viewer will never see. This is more of a concern with vector art than raster.

I remember when Adobe Illustrator first came out there was an artist at the newspaper who got carried away with all the little curvy shapes that made up the border on a county map. The printed size of the map was only 2 or 3 inches but he went down a rabbit hole and zoomed in, clicking away and ended up with several thousand points. Fifty points would have been more than enough. I know it’s not as much of a concern with today’s technology but back then it was enough to crash the printer. And even so, why add more detail than people will ever see?