How to Draw Trees in nature

1. PROMO: Do you like to spend time in nature? Do you like drawing? What if I told you that you can improve your drawing skills only by drawing trees. Trees are like people to have their own bodies and structure. Except they're not as complex as people. In this course, I'm going to teach you how to draw trees. So let's have some fun. This will train your eye to see proportions, structure, shape, details, and everything else. And it will improve your drawing skills. 2. MATERIALS: Hi there. Before we start, I want to talk about materials. And this is going to be short. You just need a notebook, preferably something that you can put it in your bag, or something easy to carry. A bolt. That's right. If you want to have a pencil, okay, but I would suggest for this lecture you really take a ballpark. And why is that? It's because I don't want you to have any safety net. That's right. A part of this exercise of learning how to draw. And by drawing trees is that you need to get it used to just scribble, to draw without having an eraser, without having to think of making clean lines. So just that notebook, preferably something that you have winds on or something that fields temporary for the same reason as I'm choosing the bulk been something that you don't want to hang up on the wall or having these serious business going on. I want you to feel relaxed. So this methods of having about them and just the normal notebook will release you from the pressure of having to make the best drawings of your life. And that's how you learn to make the best drawings of your life. So that's it. Now, let's go. 3. DRAWING LINES: Before we go to drawing trees, I want you to start with a very simple exercise. We're going to one of how to draw lines. And this exercise is important because I want you to know how to hold your hand, how to loosen up. The main idea, withdrawing traits, is that you can freely move your hand and draw whatever you want. And in this occasion, trees, because no one can recognize the right or the wrong tree is the tree will not be insulted. So to do that, I want you to start, just make sure you pan new bulb and it's working. Just draw lines like that. Move your arm freely, like that. Just down and just scribble something very easily done. Press it. Don't do this pressure thing. Just easily make it slide on the paper. Just make controlled lines and make long lines on top of each other due to the mouth, like grass or trees or something. So this is one of the wines that we're going to use when you start drawing trees. Another thing is that I want to just start drawing small, small lines next to each other like that. In this way, we are going to describe the structure of the bark. So maybe just unify them. Do another one. Just try to draw them quickly, easily. Not just a lot of pressure. Make them just going one direction or another, not too many. You can release your hands after awhile. But just make a couple of these. One next to another. I think in the beginning, what you're going to experience is the line are not going to be just as even as mine. Maybe you'll maybe do something like dots or doubt. I mean, I don't know, but the thing is that you should not be conscious about it. Have to be easy about it. I'll just do a couple of them. Open your notebook and doodle them out. And this is how we are going to draw the structure of a tree. And these lines are not only good for the structure of the tree, these are also going to be useful for you when you draw anything else, a face or a human. These are basically how you shade in black and white when you use, just want to just pencil or a bolt bank or something like that. So that's it. These are the other lines. Now let's do the other exercise. Let's do though like that. Freely, just due to freely lines like that. This can be, this can look like nonsense really. But believe me, this is how you're going to build your structure later on. Just do those some hearts, maybe total sum, tier alike, things like that. And this is going to be how you build the crown of the tree or your leaves. And when you practice these doodles, this is also how you free your mind. Are doing. Doing things that are not concrete. Believe me, your mind is fast as fast and in structure is something to be pretty in something to be precise. This is not how you draw. You draw by summoning components together, and you draw by freeing your mind and your hand. For doodling. This is how you draw people. This is how you draw anything else. So when you start just doing that, when you will see that we already have a bush kind of like thing here. In this bush. If you want to have, for example, shading, like if you want to have this bunch of leaves, for example, sticking out, well, just do use these lines and just place them around a counter that you decide like that. And you see that it looks like there is a bunch of leaves coming from coming upfront. And it feels like the illusion of this space here being behind that space. This is just an illusion of course, but that's what drawing is as being able to create an illusion of that something that is two-dimensional is actually real and it's three-dimensional. So these are the other set of lines that you can do. So they're not around that like that, but they are straight and that is how you shade in graphic, graphic art. And maybe sometimes you want to put another set of lines like that. Believe me, when I started drawing this took me a while to get this done like that. And we had a particular lecture on how to do this line. So please take your notebook whenever you can and practice this lines because they are going to be the basics of your drawing. But enough of that nonsense. I know you're eager to start drawing and to learn something. And this is the shortest I can be with this lecture. And keep your patient's going. So let's get out in the nature and start drawing some trees. 4. HOW TO BEGIN: Start with finding a nice place to sit in the nature. Choose a tree. Take your notebook and a pen or pencil, and start observing. Just get comfortable. Well, that's basically all you need. Oh no, I forgot to mention a bottle of water. Now, it's not for drawing, is just for drinking. They hydrate it. 5. START DRAWING: When you choose a tree, notice the structure of it. How big is the trunk? How big are the largest? And how much leaves to the half. Remember, you won't have to draw on the beach and all the branches of the tree. It's like you don't draw all the hairs on the human head. But let's start and learn along the process. So just start with a roughly drafting the trunk. Draw with loose strokes. Don't try to pressure it too much. Just likely draft and sketch. The lines. Doesn't have to be on the right spot. You're looking for the shape here. You're experimenting and exploring the tree. What is important here is to find the proportions of the trunk towards the biggest branches. Trees are like humans. They have lamps and they have bodies like the trunk. So now we have drafted the tree approximately. Now, let's remember, we want to go from this to this. Such rough sketch is all you need to start with. It doesn't have to be much more. Now, let's continue with the next lecture. 6. REFINING AND DETAILS: So we have this basic Judo, basic outline of our tree. Let's continue refining and adding more branches. As we talked about before, we're going to focus on the trunk of the tree and the branches that are more visible or obvious. Now you can even start adding smaller branches. Trees are like people. They have their own structure. Their trunk is like their body, and their bronchus is like their lamps. Drew with the sketch and lines. Don't be afraid to just doodle that out. Move from one place of the tree to another. Draw everything at the same time. Don't just start with something and then continue with that thing. You need to have an overview of what you're doing. So drafted out even with the bullpen. To increase the feeling that I can make all the mistakes I want to make here. And I'm not going to freak out about it. I'm going to just have fun with this tree. So sketch roughly. And if you don't have to have everything in the right, Exactly the same position. What you need to do is try to find approximately the proportions of the tree. And from time-to-time, start adding even structure of the tree. And you can add the structure of the bark alone, the length of the tree. And most details you add alone the place where the branches are starting in main branches starting. So that's going to give a solid structure to the tree. And now we can even add some leads. What kind of leaves you want to add. I'm just roughly draw them like that. They don't have to look like leaves. They have to appear to have the structure of the leaves. Scribble them like that. Very likely. Just to give some character. You can then take out some leaves and make them even more precise. Just to see what kind of leaves us this recap, you don't have to draw all, but just a few will give your viewer a hint what you want to convey here. So let's continue with the rest of the tree. This is a process that goes for from bag for from that. Between adding details, looking at the whole picture, how you trees looking, looking like, and adding details. It is an enjoyable process. You see you're in nature. You can probably hear the frogs around. I decided to do this video in the nature because you see how easy it is. You're going to enjoy this process. This is not supposed to be torture. And the older trees are nicer to draw because they have very characteristics branches. It's also like a drawing all people, they have these wrinkles and the more interesting to draw while maybe you don't appreciate it now, but the more you draw, you will find these juicy details of life on trees or people being very interesting. We really live or live on our faces, our bodies. And it is interesting that is what life is about reading. So if you don't have the spot for all of the tree, just as a few branches so the tree doesn't look. Leaflets. Just to add some texture, to add some life to it. And yes, feel easy about it. While you're drawing. You can either listen to the nature, the frogs or when you're hearing here and backgrounds, you can have a nice music for you to listen to. And sometimes your gum and you have bugs crawling on you. That's a part of it. Part of the meditative. Thing about drawing trees. Learning to draw. By drawing trees. Sometimes you can get carried away when you start drawing just a part of the leaves and they will lead you and you just forget what you're doing. So go back, see the whole picture at something more. And you see if you follow me, how light the strokes or even just repeating them do these wavy lines. No one will know what kind of Theresa I'm drawing. I'm drawing it to learn about structure. I'm drawing it too long about how the lines are behaving on top of the structure of the tree. And also to enjoy the process. Trees can teach us a lot about proportions. Because branches have their own proportions. Mean septum branches are biggest. Chunk of the tree is also larger. And we can define proportions of this branch, for example, compared to this branch. Just needed. And now we're starting to this meeting process here. Yeah, just drawing lighting fixtures, finding interesting things on this tree, interesting texture tree, and adding some. You don't have to add this texture all along to knit it out. Now, it is going to be boring. Your drawing will be more interesting, the same as life when you have contrast to it. When you have parts which are darker and more developed and other parts are lighter, that you can just assume that the shape is continuing there. So that's why it's actually not even goods to draw all the leaves and everything on the tree you're drawing will look more interesting. It will lead the eye to the viewer, to something that has a stronger contrast like this area. And we'll give it more flavor. And this is good for them because think, if you have to draw all the leaves, I mean, forget about work, right? You will be drawing leaves for a long time. No. No. You don't have to do that for something to look go to look like a tree. And especially when it's drawing. Because you have access to just these two. Don't have colors. So you have to make a difference between one element and the other. Sorry. This should look like a branch and this should look like a tree. And this should look like it has a thicker texture. While the branches and the crown should look like to have a more airy, spacey texture. And it should also look as if it is a Coca-Cola because it is a whole thing, because the, the crown is composed of leaves. But it looks like it has a body of its own. And that's how you can even summarize it that some parts you can just add shapes like that. And outer line, this is something that is behind this tree. There are leaves just maybe to some wavy lines to express that this behind the tree is actually a part of the crown. The crown has many leaves. You will, you will do it many times and you will see when you like the tree and you'll find a good spot and you'll enjoy the process. You are going to experience of law. And some trees that to draw will look better than the others. Here, when you sketch a tree, it is actually up to you to decide at what stage you wants to leave the process. Now, this tree looks but already, you can just leave it at that and continue it started drawing another tree. Or you can just explore more. And in exploring from here on, why do you need to do is balance out, where is the darkest place I want to have part of the tree now, it appears to be here. Why these two branches? And over here, when there is this interesting. Branch coming out where the leaves is like a naught of the tree, like our hands basically. So you maybe add some texture here. Tree, where the tree meets the air so it becomes more solid. And you always add more details around the branches. The branches start like that, and this tree is pretty old, so the crown is much higher up and I'm sitting pretty close to this tracer. One thing you want to do if you want to draw the whole tree or take a spot that is further away from it. Otherwise it will just, you can draw the whole tree, but you don't really have to. Now around the tree, there's so many other things. There are the bushes and branches. You'll get tempted to draw them all because sometimes that, well, it's not like in the reality. You want to draw them. You don't have to really just balance it out. You see that maybe here you want to have some leaves because the leaves of this tree are so much higher up. I wanted to have more accidents. I wanted to have more variety, more life of texture to this tree. So I'll just put another one here. And you see, I'm just doodling basically, I'm drawing in defined lines and here I want to make it clear where the tree meets the ground. You see the spots where something needs another shape or a ground is basically the most significant and important places. And to do, the grass has this texture. The grasses, Strauss standing up. So I'm doing strokes along the shape of the graph. And I'm not going to draw the whole graph. Also. I'm not going to draw the whole woods, just the part of it where the tree starts from and make it darker. And even in this spot here which is already dark, I'm just going to increase that and add even more details. Now, these little lines here are kind of signifying the structure of the tree. Being them a little bit on some spots where I have more details. And then I want to enhance the structure of this tree. And not too much. Well, actually, you can consider your tree kind of done. And you can go on with another tree. But look how fast this gulp and the tree came to life. The process was enjoyable and I hope you enjoyed it too. Now let's go have some coffee or conquer oral wine and just enjoy being in nature. So I hope you had fun and go out and draw some trees. Here you go. You have a nice tree famished for about 15 minutes. Now, I hope you continue this process on your own. 7. LET´S DRAW ANOTHER TREE: So low we're at it. Let's draw another tree. So let's start with the trunk. Starts with the loose lines, the lines that I showed you, and try to find now, again, the trunk of the tree. And it doesn't have to be precise. Just with those lines, discover, discover and explore the tree. This is going to help you with the market. Women, drunk, people. Basically that you'll do the same thing. But then you will have gone over your fear of drawing up, making mistakes. And that will help you a lot in your drawing. So here I see that it's a proportion wise. There is a branch starting from here and it's hidden under some just gonna doodle out a curvy line here for this branch. What else do I say? This is more simple than the other tree. There is a clean spot over here and there is a branch coming from here. So I'm just going to draw the legs again and wavy lines. And it changes direction here and there is a curve over here. There is one small branch here, which I'm going to add because this tree doesn't have as much branches around the trunk area, this area. So I need to add the most branches that I can to give the structure of this tree. So I'm just going to do the out. Even this branch here, maybe some small branches on top of them. Even if you don't see them, you can add those branches. This is your creativity talking here. You're the artist. You can choose what to add whatnot to add. It. Don't be afraid if you sell out what it is there. Well, now wonderful night. You are her long here and no one will see this tree unless you meet some branches. I'm sorry about that. So it's not really that tree. I cheated. I missed some branches. Well, that's what artists do. We cheat. We tried to convey reality in two-dimensional space. Reality that is not there. So we are trying also to make it look pretty, to make it look balanced and products, you have to choose some things out and you have to put something that I'm not there. I'm just going to add this branch that is further away. There is a nice structure here and you see how lightly I don't even press the Bolton lightly. I go over these branches just like it. Like that. Well, this is our new tree. Now. Basically is enough. Okay, let's add some branches over here, which are at the bottom of the tree. And let's add some of the grass that the solvent, they're very loosely, just like a sketch. That's all it takes. It took us three minutes digital this out without thinking. Now, let's continue. I went I didn't want details. 8. ADDING DETAILS: So welcome back. We are ready to go for the details. And as it's up before now started doodling on top of the bark, finding the dark areas. Now the light is coming from here. We see from this plot. So we're going to try to add the shading and around the core of the brand. Just want to branch to start. We're going to add more detail. And it's going to be a little bit darker than the other areas. Here. We're going to go from these kind of shaped lines to other more loose lines. Just play with it for awhile and discover your own style. Discover how you're comfortable doing that. Let's add some leaves just to be to make the tree come to life more. And there's some shading here, some lonely lives here that are describing some kind of a silhouette. Find this juicy details to add more life to your picture. And it may not come from the first time. Every tree would be different. There is no rule that says you have to add these details and D status, but there is a matter of balance really. And you find this balance by mixing up brighter area with some darker areas. And as a rule of thumb, you add the darker red areas around the beginning of the branches where they kind of step into the tree, the trunk of the tree. But please feel free to make all your mistakes here. No one is watching, there is no competition. Luckily, your passion is to become an artist and not becoming, for example, a surgeon's. I mean, that would be devastating if you're trying out, you're forced up your writing skills on a patient. And so while there is always another patient, that would be devastating, well, no one will die here and you're free to make all the mistakes you want. There is always another paper and it's safe. It's safe to make mistakes. So just please go ahead and try it out and make your mistakes freely and enjoy it. So this method of doodling is basically to help you get rid of your fear of failing and get rid of the voices in your head saying that you can't do it and you're not an artist. And do you think that artists just have talent and they just have this talent all their lives and don't do anything about it. It is really about exploring your talent. Every picture is different. And you'll see how much this do those look like, these totals and how they apply to basically this tree? You can sneak in some branch with the inside here and continue with the dark doodles. And now you now how to add shading to them item made some doodles darker like here, signifying that there is a shade on this part of the tree. Something is darker. Just apply those lines here to make the spot go into shade. And continue with the structure on the bark of the tree where those curvy lines, small ones and usually add them around the edges of the tree. That's why, that's how you get much clearer silhouette of this tree. And it will look much more expressive. So we're just going to continue with the rest of the tree. And when you know how to draw trees, when you know basically how to do. This is the most important of this lecture. Freeing your arm and your mind to do this in the first site, mindless genitals. But they create shapes. So that's how you draw even people. But when you keep yourself, when you have this notebook and you say, Oh, I can make mistakes here. This is only me. No one is watching. I don't have to prove anything to anyone. I don't have to show it to you, to my mom and say, look, I'm an artist and I succeeded here, but then fail and say, Well, I didn't succeed here. This is just for you. This is just for your exploration. And that's how your creativity will grow. And you say, well, why can I just do the louder the things that we did on this piece of paper and explore my creativity there, instead of just trying to draw this tree and having the possibility even to fail. Well, because we humans, we like to do things when we're successful at it. So if you have something that you can draw this tree, and even though it is not a copy of this tree, you'll feel satisfied that you have accomplished a nice drawing and it will look up and it will give you motivation to continue. If you don't have a motivation to continue drawing, you will never continue doing it. And if you don't continue doing it, you won't learn because practiced is the basics. Getting good at drawing. But to practice, you need to be motivated. You see how everything comes together. This simple exercises, even though they're just on the notebook, will free you to draw anything else, anything else you want to drop. And besides, you draw some pretty good **** trees here. And you have a notebook with this amazing trees and plants. If you want to draw maybe some truth, some graphs and some plants and maybe use that as a note book. I mean, this is really my notebook and write impressions. Right? What you feel and when you're out in the nature, this is so giving you see how it jumped from one place to another. Now, there's nothing really more to what I'm doing. I did this in the first sketch. Whatever I'm doing now is observing this tree and deciding where to put more accents, where to put more darkness, basically, that's what it's called. Accents. It's like you have speech and sometimes you raise the voice a little bit, so that's in them in a drawing. That's an accent where you, when you're intimate, stronger and make the drawing darker and that gives you more life. I mean, if I talk like you can draw trees. Going to teach you this. I mean, you're not going to be excited about it. And this is exactly the same with the drawing. If I draw this and never really changed style, you will just be bored of this drawing. Believe me, that even though you have the urge to draw absolutely everything, even there'll be a struggle for you as an artist. Maybe there is already in the beginning that you want to be fair to what you've seen in real life. You want to say, well, it has to be exactly like I saw it. But the thing is that the more you actually not draw it exactly like it is, the more like it is, it looks, the more real it looks. So this is really contradictory and really very interesting thing that I have observed from my career has that the more real things they're a little bit made up. And if something is real, real, It's kind of like something feels wrong with Isn't that funny how things are about that, that's who we are. I mean, we perceive the world through our senses. Proprioception really, what the perception is more important than the census. Used up three advantage, whatever you decide to draw. You see here, we've drawn another tree pretty quickly. And now it's up to you or to finish. And how long you want to take it. If you want to draw some more, again, I stopped too close to that tree. And when you sit too close, you can see the hall and you're not going to tend to draw the upper part of the tree. That's okay. That's not a big deal. And we had another pleasant experience out in nature. And yet another tree. Tend to your collection. I hope you enjoyed this class. You'll see how easy it is. Now. Grab your notebook, grab your ball pen. You see we've never needed to erase and enjoy some time in nature and draw some trees. Practice your drawing things from me and I hope to see you around. Bye for now.