Rural Route One - Artist Vincent Whitehead ballpoint pen art

Drawing Trees Tutorial 3 — part 2

by Vincent D Whitehead   ©2010

Trees - Distant

As I have stated the before, the distant trees are drawn with only the smallest amount of detail and line work. Most often I use a style of stippling and short dashed lines to indicate leaf and foliage work.

Stippling, as it pertains to Ball Point Pen work, is the use of dots to produce a form on paper that is recognizable by the viewer as a specific subject in the drawing. I use these series of dots in layers to yield tone and depth. I also us a form of dashed lines or squiggles that could almost be called "scratch work". I do this work very quickly and without attention to a set pattern or design as I want them to appear more natural when finished and not like a type-writer or printer work.

Look at the cropped image from the mid-ground and distant section of trees from the finished drawing. If you compare the two areas you can see that the mid-ground trees foliage areas, while much smaller in detail outline than the foreground trees foliage areas, you can still discern the leaf patterns that make up the leaf clumps from the branch and limbs. Now look at the distant tree leaf patterns. After close consideration, you see that suggestion of leaf patterns and clumps are only made up of the dashes/scribbles and dots that I have mentioned before here.
Drawing Trees - example: Gilbert Home

Look at this close up cropped image from the previous image. You can see the dot and scribble work more easily.
Drawing Trees

Note that I can use these same techniques for leaf work tree sections and for Pine or needle like tree areas. I merely work the scratches or scribbles in a closer pattern that more closely follows the growth pattern of the pine trees in the scene. Those trees also appear much darker as they are behind the leaf type trees and are shaded. I will layer the scratches and scribbles until I get the tone value that I want in the scene. The dot or scratch work for the most distant tree indications are very sparsely spaced giving the appearance that you can just barely make them out. More white paper seen, equals more distance.

! Remember for the distant and mid-ground work almost all of it is done with the FINE point pen. Keep the tip wiped clean to guard against accidental ink placement.

I think this about wraps this one up. As always, if you have any specific questions, please feel free to directly, and remember, Keep On Creating!

Vincent D. Whitehead