The Texture and Patterns of Trees
View from Bacaro Cafe at Tweed Regional Gallery. NSW
This week our combined Gold Coast and Kingscliff class were studying pattern and texture in landscapes, to include in our sketches.
Our warm up was to sketch whatever was on the table. Always gets us in the mood.
We have a marvellous book - ‘London You’re Beautiful’ by David Gentleman.
This book I’ve had since it was published in 2012. He was 82
I’ve used this book often in classes over the years as an example of simplifying a subject, and today we were seeing how he uses line and pattern in his landscapes.
We then enjoyed doing our own tree textures after seeing his.
I love his loose line and minimal colour whizzed in. He also adds surprise little human elements such as people doing yoga, walking the dog, pushing the pram and so on. Tiny little ant sized things sometimes but you know immediately what they’re doing.
Some of our students followed suit and added lovely little additions to their own sketches.
His latest book just published is called ‘David Gentleman’s My Town, An Artist’s Life in London’ He is now 90yrs old.
Take a look at the link, and see some of the texture he uses for fields, trees, wheat, stone, and more.
So don’t think you're too tired to get out there and sketch - you can see how good sketching is for your wellbeing!
Getting back to us, you can see the amazing view of those rolling green pastures, huge established trees and pastel mountains beyond.
We had such a lovely day and the sketches were a delight, with one new sketcher, some on their second lesson and others more experienced.
Moss Vale in Southern Highlands was more of a private lesson, with three sketchers elsewhere. But we always love our planned lesson with a full class or not. Nature, texture and coloured paper was definitely a very enjoyable new way to sketch plant life and flowers. One student sketched a French cafe in Sydney meanwhile.
Take a look at our results and enjoy them as much as we did creating them.
