Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday!
Here’s your weekly dose of inspiration To build a creative habit
One drawing at a time Brought to you by sketchbook Skool
Hello!
Let’s go outside and play!
Because drawing on location can be so much fun.
I love sitting in a cafe to draw, or better yet, when the weather allows, sitting outside
of a cafe, sipping coffee or a cool drink while I draw my surroundings.
Taking in the city vibes and capturing the hustle and bustle of the city by drawing buildings,
people, cars, trams, bicycles… whatever catches my eye and seems appropriate - or
just fun- to draw.
As I live in the middle of the city, it all makes sense to me.
And the one thing I didn’t mention is trees and greens.
Because even if you live in an urban area, there will always be some type of green.
And in summer, sometimes it seems like nature is just exploding - so many shades of green,
so many flowers and colors!
And when you look closely, each leaf that you see, has a different shape.
So today, let’s tackle drawing plants and trees and everything around that.
My studio is situated in a building that used to be a school.
Now the classrooms are rented by freelancers, small businesses and entrepreneurs like myself.
So this is Sketchbook Skool’s Amsterdam Headquarters.
In an actual school!
And this is the community garden of the building - this is where I plan to sit down for about
half an hour to draw trees.
I found a really great spot in the community garden.
There’s lots of greens here.
It’s kind of hard to choose where to even look and what to draw, but I will draw the
view that I see from here.
And I’ll take my artistic liberty, taking some things out, adding things, shifting things
together.
That’s probably what I’ll be doing.
But yeah I am pretty excited to get started and try to capture this green oasis.
This si a fantastic garden and I really hope to capture the silence, the rustling of the
leaves.
All those elements that you hear, and feel and smell in a garden, I am trying to put
those onto paper.
So many leaves!
So many greens.
It’s a bit overwhelming so to get over the first bump, I’m starting with watercolors.
I will list the colors I use below the video I’m not trying to mix the exact colors I
see, I just find the right tone and brightness for the different kinds of greens.
Don’t think too much about it, just dive in.
Then brush in the general shapes.
I use my brush to make marks to indicate leaves and shadows.
There’s an endless range of greens you can mix, adding blue and yellow.
And brown for more earthy tones.
This way you can capture the many greens that you see.
The watercolor is still partly wet, but I think this part has dried so I want to dive
in using colored pencils.
I want to start with the little tree in the center here, but the paint turns out not to
be dry yet, so I’ll do some mark making for the big tree in the background.
I use the side of the lead of my dark brown pencil, to draw the tree stem and branches.
More mark making, general leaf shapes, and then moving on to the smaller tree again.
Let’s see if a white pencil can help me to add that light shade of green on those
leafs.
I am missing a little context here - of course there are buildings in the background but
I’m focusing on the greens, but this needs something, and luckily, there’s the string
of lamps I can draw.
When drawing plants and greens, I think mark making is key.
Instead of trying to draw each leaf one by one.
It would be an insane amount of work, and also, when you look at a garden or a tree,
you don’t see each leaf, you see the general shape and colors.
So by using all kinds of different marks and creating textures, you can indicate leave
and shaded areas.
And of course, grab some colors for the flowers that you see.
You’ll need to find out which of your tools and colors work best on top of watercolor.
For the stuff that’s more in the foreground, I do draw some leaves, but again I keep it
general - an interpretation of the plants that I see.
I think adding the big flowers an bright colors is the best part!
This part is a little closer by, so I’ll just add a bit of line in colored pencil.
And then there’s the plant right in front of me.
I’ll draw it in line using black ink.
That’ll make it stand out and it will add a lot of depth to my drawing.
And I’ll leave it transparent so you can still see the background behind it.
I’ll also add that table and the two benches - again to give the drawing context.
Now it’s clear that this is a drawing of a garden.
And finally, the background needs a little something.
I’ll draw the side of the building, and also the building behind the big tree.
A little bit of light coloring - but not too much because I want the emphasis to be on
the greens.
That was fun and also really relaxing while it was a challenge at the same time.
Drawing while listening to the birds and the sounds of the wind through the trees.
It slows you down to just be in the moment.
I hope you’ll go and play outside.l and capture some greens.
And if so, please share in on social media using the hashtag DTTinAction, so I can see
what you did!
Have fun.
Bye!