Some Views of the Park

Sunny afternoon, Park Lafontaine 7/25/11

The past few days, I've been experimenting with different drawing techniques for foliage, searching out a shorthand that captures the rhythm, busyness, and emotional tone of trees and shrubs at different times of the day. I've been thinking about this problem for years, and keep coming back to it, but now I have a bit more time to explore possibilities. These are just some initial sketches done with my Lamy fountain pen, quickly. I'll move on to washes and broader areas of ink and contrast, but I'm curious how far one can go with just a pen.

Early evening, 7/26/11

 

Night, 7/27/11

Comments

[Dave]

You should submit this to the Festival of the Trees.

[Marja-Leena]

These are all lovely, Beth. Is that the park we walked through to get to your place, I've forgotten the name?

[Uma]

Love these, Beth!

[Beth]

Thanks for the suggestion, Dave - I just went over and did it.

Marja-Leena, yes, that's the same park! Parc Lafontaine.

Thank you, Uma!

[Rosemary Starace]

I like these, Beth; your line is so lively. I've had similar interest in how to "represent" foliage, but I haven't made drawings in quite awhile. My eye always goes searching for rhythm and pattern. I love to look at Charles Burchfield and the charcoal drawings of Emily Carr (who's Canadian)--both of whom are quite stylized but have great emotional impact.

[Beth]

Rosemary, thanks for the comment and those suggestions -- I've just spent a while looking at drawings by Carr and Burchfield and a few others, maybe I'll write something further about this topic. Van Gogh is another artist who explored foliage within the landscape a great deal -- do you know his drawings made with a blunt pen, in sepia?

Thanks for writing -- and I hope you'll make some drawings one of these days!

[marly youmans]

Yes, Festival of Trees!

And you should look at Laura Frankstone's pen and ink trees, too. She has done a lot of experimenting and put it on line...

[Natalie]

Nice, Beth - I like the bottom one best,its density and movement.
I too love Van Gogh's pen drawings of landscape. He managed to suggest solid forms by the way the strokes of his pen follow them - like undulating soil, tree trunks etc.- they seem to clarify and organise the chaos in nature that our eyes see. Foliage is especially tricky.If you don't draw every leaf,like some 'naive' artists (and quite lovely too) there has to be a shorthand. Chinese brush drawings are another way.

[Laura frankstone]

Well, I didn't know you drew! Of course, there's a lot of a lot I don't know about you! Thank you for your comment about the rigor of my line----that is exactly what I'm after, or one of the main things anyway. I've long tried to replicate the spirit and energy I sense (see, feel, even hear) in trees, flowers, other growing things---- the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, as Thomas describes it. I'm an animist!

[Laura]

I forgot to say I like your drawings very much, Beth. I encourage you to do more and more and more.

[Beth]

Natalie, thanks. Looking at some more Chinese brush paintings is a good idea, though right now I'm intrigued with what can be done with line alone.

Thank you so much, Laura! A great compliment coming from you, and I appreciate it. I'm a graphic designer by profession but have drawn and painted for much of my life. However there was a big hiatus over the last 15 years or so, when I devoted much more time to writing. I started doing some art again a year ago, inspired by the Urban Sketchers, and my own yearning to get away form the computer and back to working with my hands. I was very rusty and somewhat tentative, and not really willing to start where I had left off either. So it's been interesting. I've posted a lot more of my work, both old and new, on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46088325@N02/ and it's also organized her on the blog under the categories of Drawing, Painting, Making Stuff, etc.

[Beth]

...the encouragement matters, no matter how long we've been at it. Heading out to the park with my sketchbook soon!