Category: Trees

Birch Mirror

silver birch
birch mirror acrylic painting

In the spring of 1996 I’d just finished my book Yorkshire Rock which for several years had involved drawing lots of small illustrations, mainly from reference, so I felt the need to get out to draw from life again.

I took a portable easel and a set of acrylics into Coxley Valley and painted entirely on location, making a point of never finishing anything off when I got back home. I’d had enough of being stuck at my desk, now every brushstroke had to be painted directly from the natural world.

This silver birch grew on the slope directly beneath pylon cables. My theory is that while still a sapling it had been flattened by falling ice or snow but it continued to grow, framing the view beyond.

acrylic paints

To keep things simple I took only the three primaries with me, plus white. I used an enamel jug or billy can which I dipped in the beck for my water. I used the billy can itself for cleaning brushes and the smaller enamel mug which served as a lid was for clean water for mixing colours.

Poplar and Oak

poplar

A covering of snow this morning was a reminder that although we want to get ahead with our veg garden, it’s too early to plant out most of our crops.

Trees drawn from our morning coffee stops: an oak from Rivers Meet, Methley, and a poplar from the Coffee Stop at the Junction.

We were back there again this morning, walking alongside the river through a snow shower which soon gave way to blue skies and sun.

oak
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Categorized as Trees

Holmfield Beech

Holmfield beech

In Holmfield Park, adjoining Thornes and Clarence Parks in Wakefield, this old beech has so far escaped damage in storms. So many beeches in the area are getting to that 150 to 200 year old stage when they start shedding boughs. Let’s hope that this one still has decades of life left in it.

sandstone wall
rose

On Saturday we met up with family at the Holmfield Arms, in Holmfield House, a Victorian mansion which was once gifted to the city and housed the local museum.

The cross-bedded sandstone is the wall of what is now an orangery style room in the Brewers’ Fair restaurant. It overlooks a terrace surrounded by shrubs and trees, including a lime (lower left on my sketch above). Varieties of lime that grew in a columnar shape were popular with the Victorians.

I drew more Victorian trees in Horbury. Some of these are getting to the end of their natural lives and have shed branches, or on the odd occasion been blown down in storms.

Jenkin Road, Horbury

Olive Tree

olive

Drawing this 125 year old olive tree reminded me of our holidays in Greece and Majorca and made me think that I’d like to go drawing there again.

olive

This one grows in a large planter in Crimple Garden Centre’s Bar + Kitchen overlooking the Crimple Valley just outside Harrogate.

Window drawn at Blacker Hall Farm Shop cafe the other day.

Ash Catkins

ash catkins

The wind had snapped off an ash twig, so I brought it home and stood it in a jug of water to watch the male and female catkins unfurl.

As I drew, I couldn’t help thinking of Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, in their roles as Gerald Crich and Gudrun Brangwen in one of the opening scenes of Women in Love, where school inspector Gerald interrupts Gudrun’s botany lesson on catkins.

Dry Leaves

dry leaves
Drawn in Clip Studio Paint on my iPad Pro

After drawing so many cartoons, I wanted to draw from life for a change, so I picked up a few dry leaves which had blown into the corner by the front door.

Poplars

poplar

Pools have formed in the lower corners of fields, one of these temporary lagoons has a small muddy island with just enough room for the three mallards that are standing on it.

Trees were slow to turn colour this autumn but now there’s an ochre harmony to the foliage and increasingly they’ve lost there leaves. These poplars in a shelter belt at Dobbies Pennine Garden Centre, Shelley, on the 210 metre (656 feet) contour, overlooking the valley of Sheply Dike, are just clinging on to their topmost leaves, which is the opposite to maples and ash that I’ve seen that have been losing their top leaves first.

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Categorized as Trees Tagged

Laburnum Stump

laburnum stump

This morning I drew what remains of the old laburnum behind the aviaries at the top end of the Fish Pond (now more likely to be referred to as the Duck Pond) at Thornes Park.

There was more of the tree left when I drew it for my ‘Thornes Park’ booklet over twenty years ago, and it was still hanging onto a few living branches. The aviary has had a major revamp since then.

Chestnut Stump

chestnut

This sweet chestnut stump by the Lower Lake in the Pleasure Grounds at Nostell had been cut so that it created a Tolkeinesque throne.

Starting at the top of the drawing, I drew in pen then inked in the dark crevices using a Chinese brush but as I got onto the main trunk, I brushed in the darker areas first, then added the line.

Ash Roots

ash roots

Ash roots grow over an old quarry face near the ice house at The Menagerie at Nostell.