Pen and ink: Trees ( Day #3 of 7 )

I thought I'd try something new for tree number three. I've never drawn a Joshua Tree before so I thought its spiky foliage would be an interesting challenge... plus a desert tree in the Mojave Desert is bound to need some rocks in the background. I love drawing rocks. :)

Drawn with a Lamy Safari fountain pen (standard black ink cartridges) on 200gsm smooth cartridge paper.

Workflow

• I started by drawing a rough frame to help with placing the drawing (I hate running out of paper half-way through a drawing). I then marked the eyeline with dots against the frame and sketched in the main branches.
• Next I started rendering the spiky foliage using radiating spiky trianges from a centre point. Once each was complete, I shaded each clumb, bearing in mind the light direction and density of foliage. You can see an unshaded clump on the far left in the second image below.
• I carried one rendering each clump until I was happy with the coverage and placement of the complete foliage.
• Next I shaded the branches, using marks to suggest the texture of the tree's interesting bark (part spiky, part scaly). Once that was complete I sketched in the rough outline of the rocks I was going to draw for background interest.

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