Snowy Woods – Watercolour
A familiar scene at this time of year when frost or snow seems to add more colour to the local woodlands
latest updates: trees
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2013Jan 100
tags: Brrrr | snow | trees -
2012Dec 31
tags: Ratho | Scotland | Tormain Woods | trees
A quiet end to the year – Watercolour
One of my favourite views in the local woods. It strikes me that the calendar changes, tonight, but the trees remain much as they always have done over the past 35 years we have stayed here. Nice and comforting. Happy New Year everyone and all the best of everything in 2013.
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2012Nov 23
tags: Birch | trees
Birches – Ink
An attempt to show the different rates our trees loose their leaves. The birches – the focal point of this sketch, have lost their leaves. These trees are always among the first to come into leaf in springtime and, are the first to loose their leaves at the back end of the year. The elms and beeches, in the distance have, by comparison, retained most of their foliage – but not for long as winter is now nigh.
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2012Sep 21
tags: trees
watercolor with trees 9/18/12
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2012Jul 7
tags: Harding | Inktense | trees
Tree Study – Inktense on tinted paper
This is a copy of a sketch by JD Harding in his book “On drawing trees and nature”. The book was first published in the middle of the 18th century. My thanks to John for finding this book which is full of wonderful sketches. It was fun trying to copy something, while following instructions and hints from so long ago. I just hope I’ve done the sketch justice.
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2012May 19
tags: brooklyn | sketch | trees
Blooming. Ink and Kuretake and Tradio.
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2012Mar 19
tags: pencil | trees
Winter Birches – Pencil
Been rediscovering pencils and using some newly learned techniques. This is a quick sketch of some local trees during the winter snows.
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2012Feb 24
tags: Brrrr | Ratho | Scotland | trees
Vandalised Tree #2 – Watercolour
In my previous post I suggested that small trees, in the gardens of local houses, were being wrongly pruned. It would appear that the same goes for well-established ones.
This is a huge beech which is shown next to the A71 – one of the main arterial routes into Edinburgh. I pass this way almost daily and this scene was created from a photograph taken recently in early December. You can see that the left hand branches have been lopped off in order to allow traffic to pass underneath. This has been going on for years and is not confined to this particular tree. I confess that I do not have any other solution to this as the tree seemed to be encroaching on the vehicles. After all, the road cannot be moved. What is appalling is that the bear minimum of boughs have been removed leaving the tree totally unbalanced. Presumably it would have been too costly to remove timber on the right hand side. Shortly after this photograph was taken we had a severe storm which videoed:
Even this was not enough to cause it some damage but, in January, another, stronger gale caused widespread damage. The tree is no longer here having succumbed. It would probably have survived if years of “asymmetric pruning” had not taken place. Rather sad!
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2012Feb 22
tags: Brrrr | Ratho | Scotland | trees
Vandalised Tree #1 – Watercolour
This is a local street on a frosty morning but the idea is not to show you a clear, crisp vista.
When these houses were built, around 35 years ago, trees were strategically planted. Now, some time later they are becoming too large and attempts are being made to cut the upper branches down to size. Residents hire people to do this but one wonders if these people are properly qualified as the trend seems to be to butcher all the upper branches when individual ones should have been tackled instead. The tree, far left was at least double this height while the one, in the centre not quite so. The left hand tree will become unstable and dangerous while the other is starting to push fresh growth across the roadway and will require attention in the near future. I wish folks would ask potential “tree surgeons” for proof of their competence – there are qualifications obtainable in Scotland. Maybe the original builders should have chosen their tree species with more consideration. Its not just amateurs who leave trees looking like this and my next post will attempt to show the result of some “officially organised vandalism” -
2012Feb 22
tags: buildings | neighborhood | sketching | trees
Neighborhood.Sketched on my first Moleskine Sketchbook.Used 0.2mm and 0.5mm technical pens and Pilot brush pen.
