How to draw winter trees

Equipment

Electric eraser

Framer’s tape

Unison pastels

Colours

White

Pale yellow

Strong yellow

Warm beige

Warm grey

Create a winter scene with soft pastels and charcoal

'I often find that luck or chance play a pivotal role in what inspires me,' says Sandra Orme.

'Many of my pieces have been created from what I happened to see whilst walking my dogs, rather than from those times I specifically went out seeking artistic inspiration. This piece is one of those lucky occasions.'

Winter Trees, charcoal and pastel on Clairefontaine Pastelmat, (65x45cm)

'In the late afternoon, just as the winter sun began to break through the fog the trees lining the promenade near the river became backlit by a gentle diffuse yellow light. Their strong forms were silhouetted against the soft shadows and shapes of further bushes and smaller trees behind them. I was struck by the contrast between their outlines and the winter sun behind them, along with the beautiful limited palette of the scene. I knew that recreating this scene in my favourite medium of pastels and charcoal would have many challenges, the first of which was that the artwork would have to be a certain size to enable me to draw detailed branches in charcoal pencil.

'When creating the light most of the work comes when adding more small branches in pencil or when using the electric eraser. This is something that is repeat with multiple layers. It’s another challenge – you need to balance this building of layers with making on-going judgements about how much detail you want to have. Keep taking a step back to look at the overall effect. The idea is to create the bold shapes of the trees and interesting angular branches without over-doing the detail and making things too busy. Pick out some branches with interesting shapes that you like and add stronger tones to them; move them to different areas if need be, for example in front of the light. Use your judgement to decide what to include, move or leave out. Do this by not getting too caught up in fine detail. Keep taking that step back!'

Sandra’s top tips for creating atmospheric woodland scenes:

Bear in mind that you are trying to evoke a sense of place, not draw a diagrammatic representation of trees.
Limit your palette to six harmonious shades that range from light to mid-grey through the yellow spectrum.
Before you start, check your charcoal for bumps and lumps so you don’t scratch the soft surface of the paper.
Always use the side of the pastel at the first stages and don’t use white yet. You’ll use that later to create a dramatic sun highlight.
Try practising trees first on a piece of scrap paper using different angles/edges/directions. Explore stop/start mark-making to achieve a more jagged twig like mark.
Use a strong yellow with a pale yellow on top near the white sun to achieve a hint of warmth coming through.

Demonstration: Winter Trees

'Here the challenge was to evoke a sense of place in charcoal with a limited palette. I’ve explored different ways of generating textures with marks, erasers, pastels and layers. These are skills you can develop further and explore in your work

'I find that Clairefontaine Pastelmat paper is a wonderful surface for charcoal; the medium is captured by the tooth so you can add many layers and build up strong tones. I taped down all edges of the paper as I was going to be pressing hard. You can work at a slightly smaller scale but with anything less than 25x35cm you would struggle when adding fine details.

'I used Light 1, Light 2, A7, A10, RE 13 and Grey 6 Unison soft pastels. However, you simply need white, pale yellow, warm yellow, strong yellow, warm beige and a warm grey. So you can use whatever colours you have to hand as long as they are Unison or at least a good quality soft pastels. The cheaper chalky pastels won’t allow you to build up the layers in the same way.'

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Base layer

Create a base layer using the side of a half a stick of medium charcoal by briskly adding a layer of charcoal over most of the sheet, avoiding the slightly off-centre sunlit area.

Then apply a thin amount of the pale yellow to warm grey. Rub this layer in firmly with a piece of folded kitchen roll before adding a further two layers of charcoal.

Add a third layer to the darkest areas – where the low bushes and trees will be.

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Creating the background

Using the flat side of the eraser, lightly burnished over the charcoal to smooth it further.

Then use the sharp edge of the rubber to create loose areas of light texture.

Apply more charcoal to the bushes on the right-hand side to create interesting shapes and patterns, keeping it loose.

The challenge is to create a textural background to place the trees on – too plain or flat and the trees will look stark against it.

Add more light yellow pastel where the sun is brightest

Trunks and branches

Draw in the large trunks and branches using a 5cm-long piece of medium charcoal on its side, almost printing and pressing shapes for the thinner branches.

Twist, tilt and chang angle as you drag the charcoal along.

Next, using the tip of the charcoal, add another layer over parts of the trunks and other small branches.

Switch to the thin charcoal to add further fine branches and details.

Adding the ivy

Use the eraser to create some light around trunks and branches, to change the shape of the trunks with natural seeming irregularities, particularly around the edges of the ivy-clad tree.

Adding fine branches

With the carbon pencil add fine branch details and draw over the charcoal branches to add different angles and shapes, and draw lightly over the tree trunks and branches to imply texture, twigs and ivy.

Use the eraser and electric eraser to work over it for further textures.

Finally, draw in the branches coming into the picture from the right-hand side

Top Tip

Try to use irregular pressure. Rather then drawing in a smooth motion, use slightly erratic marks to emulate twigs.

Creating the light

To create the sense of light breaking through dab some white pastel between the branches for the sun without worrying about going over some of the smaller twigs in places.

Make bold, almost paint-like strokes with the tip of the pastel.

Then use different shades of yellow and grey to gradually shade out from the lighter area with a combination of fine lines in the pencil and further pastel marks to break up the shapes, layering the different colours of the pastels together.

Finally use the pastels on their side loosely in upward, sweeping gestures across the sky around the branches to blend the strong area of colour into the charcoal-based sky.

Finished painting

Winter Trees, charcoal and pastel on Clairefontaine Pastelmat, (65x45cm)

'I used the eraser to create a path at the front to lead viewers into the picture. The joy of using this paper with charcoal is that you can add many layers but still erase and change it – this flexibility is fun to have.

'I did a final check over the picture. I used my fingers to soften the trees towards the left- and right-hand sides so that the focus and clarity is on the ivy-covered and largest trees.

'Finally, I put a touch of pale yellow on the pathway in foreground area.'

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Sandra Orme is an award-winning artist and has exhibited in the Pastel Society annual exhibition. She teaches pastels at the Ashmolean Museum and is an associate artist for Unison Pastels. Sandra runs workshops from her studio in Buxton, Derbyshire.

www.sandraorme.com

This article is taken from the January 2020 issue of The Artist

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How to draw winter trees

Equipment

Colours

Create a winter scene with soft pastels and charcoal

Sandra’s top tips for creating atmospheric woodland scenes:

Demonstration: Winter Trees

Base layer

Creating the background

Trunks and branches

Adding the ivy

Adding fine branches

Top Tip

Creating the light

Finished painting

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