Stylized Trees

I've been super into stylized trees lately. For a few months now I've been collecting snapshots of trees that pique my interest throughout the city. I've also been getting picture-books from the library and studying how other illustrators choose to stylize their trees and other plant life and implementing bits and pieces into my own creations. A dash of an idea from one book mixed with ingredients from other books to inform how I sculpt a limb or how I shape a canopy.

I'm trying to think as much out of the box as I can. That's why I'm so drawn right now to highly stylized fauna. What are the shapes that make a tree? What are the colors? If I strip down all the detail what do I have left? And then how to I re-insert detail in a way that compliments the stripped down approach? I love thinking about this stuff.

So these trees, and others in my sketchbook, are informed in part by trees in my neighborhood, and in part by brilliant illustrators who inspired me, and in part by my own dreams of wanting to build the things I see in my head and make them real.

It's an incredible feeling to walk through my neighborhood and see the trees I've collected in photos the have become muses to draw from. Spending time with them in observation and then in drawing creates an uncommon intimacy. They pop out at me in the landscapes of my walks now because I know them. I readily notice how they evolve as they pass through each season. It's also gratifying to pick up a book that impacted me and flip through it and remember how it contributed each little understanding of form or texture or color as I integrated those ideas into my own work.

I'm grateful for a neighborhood of trees and bookshelves full of books. My well is full!

This is an envelope I made for my lovely friend. It's marker, colored pencil and acrylic on a kraft paper envelope. Orchard on a Starry Night. The plum tree is my very favorite. You can't tell from the photo, but the plums are ever so slightly raised and rounded. I delighted in running my fingers over them.