E. Adams, In the National Gardens, Athens. Fountain pen with grey ink on beige paper, 14" x 10", May 2021.
On Friday, feeling grief and anger over the situation in Palestine, I turned to drawing. Wanting to do something consuming, even obsessive, that would occupy my mind for several hours, I decided to try a drawing in ink of this overgrown corner of a path in the National Gardens in Athens. It was a good choice, and a challenge -- probably the most complex scene of trees and vegetation that I've tried to do.
I started in the middle, with the largest tree, establishing the scale with that and then moving outward, first on the lower right, then upper right, then the left-hand side of the page with the far left, opposite side of the path, coming last.
There's no pencil underdrawing, and I decided to limit myself to just the ink on the paper -- no washes, and no brighter highlights in gouache or white pencil. That made the task harder, because I was using grey ink on toned paper, which already meant that I had a shorter tonal scale to work with than with black ink on white paper, for instance. The overlapping and varied strokes of the pen would have to do all the work.
As I moved into the foliage, I searched for a "shorthand" way of indicating the different types of leaves and growth patterns. Nobody wants to draw individual leaves, and it doesn't lead to a lively line at all; besides, you quickly go crazy. The detail below shows it better:
I tried to look at the growth patterns -- the leaves on the left, for instance, were stiffer and clumpier than those of the delicate, wispy tree on the right. What seemed to work for me was not just varying the shapes I was drawing, but also the pressure of the pen -- the strokes on the right are delicate, light, and fast, while the ones on the right are more emphatic and distinct.
Looking back through some of my work from the past few years, I can see that trees figure pretty heavily, but usually as part of an overall landscape. I've been drawn to olive trees in particular. One of the only "tree portraits" I've done was this ancient olive tree from Agrigento, Italy, back in 2019:
E. Adams, Olive tree at Agrigento, pencil on paper, 2019.
I want to do more of these complex scenes, now that I feel like I've cracked the code a little bit more -- as with some of the urban rooftop scenes in recent years, a subject that once was completely daunting is becoming a little less so. The drawing at the top of this post took about three hours, and I'm happy with what I learned and how it came out.
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Today, I took some time to look at some old master drawings of trees -- these artists were studying the landscape for their oil paintings, but also because they clearly found trees as fascinating, beautiful, and individual as I do. Here are a few that I especially liked.
Claude Lorrain (1600-1682). Pen and ink with washes and white gouache on toned paper.
Lorrain's drawing is a good example of what can be achieved if you work on a medium-toned background, and add washes and some highlights. I'd forgotten what a consummate draftsman Lorrain was; I may do another post just about his work, some of which is so sketchy and loose it looks modern.
John Constable (1776-1837). Study of ash trees, pencil on paper.
Constable -- my God, what a draftsman of trees! These are both in pencil - the delicate ash trees above look almost like he drew individual leaves, but he really just sketched the shapes they formed together, which along with the growth-habit of the trunk and branches gives the distinctive character of the species, and this individual tree.
John Constable, Fir Trees at Hampstead, pencil on paper.
Constable again. So impressive -- he's deftly captured a totally different character of tree here, and gives the exact feeling of sitting back on the ground, looking up at these magnificent firs which recede behind one another.
Rembrandt von Rijn (1606-1669). Landscape etching.
Finally, one from Rembrandt -- I love this because it's deliberately left unfinished, and we can see his fast, scribbling line. Look at that barely-indicated tree, over on the left! Picasso loved Rembrandt and you can see why. His facility is unnerving, and just makes me smile with delight when I see the way he "builds" the trees with just that line before starting to add any shading or detail, and then starts to go in: "yes, let's work on the side of that trunk to show its gnarliness, let's show the little leaves on the ground and the way the bank is uneven, these branches I'll leave white against the dark foliage, but those others need to be dark against the light shining through"... I could feel him thinking some of the same thoughts and making some of the same decisions I did in my own drawing, and all those years and the distance between anonymity and fame collapse, and we're just two artists concentrated on our work, looking intently at trees.
I think you’re showing how much of succession artwork is in the eye rather than the hand. Looking at the clumpy new leaves of a poplar in front of me, I am not sure I could reproduce, or even just imply a growth pattern, but looking at all the drawings, I can see where you and the others did. Awesome.
Posted by: Peter | May 15, 2021 at 06:35 PM
I love your drawing a lot, and identify so much with the impulse you describe: "feeling grief and anger over the situation in Palestine... Wanting to do something consuming, even obsessive, that would occupy my mind for several hours". I think there's a similar impulse and pleasure in my current quest to learn to write Petrarchan sonnets - something I've not had the confidence or patience to tackle before. And now that I've written one I'm not unhappy with, as a start, I have just the same impulse to look again to the masters and mistresses of old as I hope to keep learning. So I was moved to find this post today.
Posted by: Jean | May 16, 2021 at 06:11 AM
Funny, I was waiting to see to if your next "Anglo" was a Gainsborough but you were right to go with a second Constable. Gonna give The Hay Wain a thousandth look, concentrating on just the trees. (Two minutes later) Yep. No big surprise; he's no slouch with oils.
Must say, you have a real affinity with trees. It's not true what they about God.
Posted by: Roderick Robinson | May 17, 2021 at 10:11 AM
I too was struck by your transforming grief and anger about Palestine (yes yes yes) into concentration on drawing trees, their gnarly, infinitely complex, convoluted contortions perfectly suited to both expressing and sublimating those emotions, channelling them into a fruitful direction. Thank you, Beth, that's a profound direction.
Posted by: Natalie d'Arbeloff | May 19, 2021 at 09:09 PM
What other tree knows better about this world's grief than the twisted trunks of thousand-years-old olive trees? They humble us, they force us to remember.
I love that drawing most, but also all your other trees and thoughts here Beth!
Posted by: Magda Kapa | May 22, 2021 at 04:52 AM