How to Draw a Tree
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Draw the trunk as two lines that spread apart at the base.
The trunk should be clearly wider at the ground than at the top.
Mametraka sary amin'ny taratasy?
Mikarakara sy manadio ny sary ho anao izahay. Tsy misy mahasamihafa ny taratasy.
Momba ity sary ity
Everybody's first tree is a lollipop: a brown stick with a green cloud on top. The reason is that a tree has roughly two hundred thousand leaves and you cannot draw them, so the brain substitutes a symbol.
The professional answer is not to draw leaves at all. You draw five or six clumps of foliage as masses of light and dark, put a few leaf-shaped marks around their edges, and let the viewer's eye supply the rest. It does, every time.
Dingana amin'ny dingana
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Endrika 1
Draw the trunk as two lines that spread apart at the base.
A trunk is not a rectangle. It flares where it meets the ground, and that flare is one of the cheapest things you can do to stop the tree looking like a post someone hammered in.
Mitandrema Parallel-sided trunk with a flat bottom.
Jereo The trunk should be clearly wider at the ground than at the top.
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Endrika 2
Fork the trunk into two or three main branches.
Every fork loses thickness: the two branches leaving a fork together should add up to about the width of the branch they came from. Get that wrong and the tree looks inflated at the top.
Mitandrema Branches as thick as the trunk they come from.
Jereo Each branch should be thinner than the trunk below it.
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Endrika 3
Fork each branch again, thinner each time.
Two more levels is plenty - most of these will be hidden by foliage anyway. What matters is that the structure exists under the leaves, because the canopy shape follows the branches and looks arbitrary without them.
Mitandrema Branches that stay the same width all the way out.
Jereo The outermost twigs should be thin lines.
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Endrika 4
Sketch the overall canopy shape, lightly.
One big irregular mass - never a circle. Real canopies are wider than they are tall and lopsided, usually leaning toward wherever the light comes from. This is a guide you will break, not an outline you will keep.
Mitandrema A neat symmetrical dome.
Jereo The canopy should be wider than it is tall, and asymmetrical.
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Endrika 5
Break the canopy into five or six overlapping clumps.
This is the step that decides whether you get a tree or a lollipop. Each clump has a bumpy top edge and a flatter shadowed underside, and they overlap - some in front, some behind. Vary their sizes deliberately.
Mitandrema Clumps of equal size arranged evenly.
Jereo You should count at least five distinct clumps of different sizes.
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Endrika 6
Leave two or three gaps where sky shows through.
A solid canopy reads as a cutout. Sky holes - especially near the middle where you can see through to the branches behind - are what tell the viewer this is a three-dimensional thing with air in it.
Mitandrema Filling the canopy completely.
Jereo You should be able to see branch through at least one gap.
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Endrika 7
Add leaf-shaped marks around the outer silhouette only.
A dozen small scalloped marks on the outside edge is enough for the eye to read the whole canopy as leaves. Adding them across the interior destroys the mass you just built and turns the tree into wallpaper.
Mitandrema Drawing leaf marks all over the inside of the canopy.
Jereo The interior should have no individual leaf marks in it.
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Endrika 8
Pick a light direction and shade the underside of each clump.
Every clump is a rough sphere, so it is light on top and dark underneath. Shade the undersides all from the same direction. This single step is what turns a flat green shape into a volume.
Mitandrema Shading the outside edge of the canopy instead of the underside of each clump.
Jereo Each clump should have its own shadow, on the same side.
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Endrika 9
Push the clumps at the back darker than the ones in front.
Sort the canopy into a front group and a back group and pull their tones apart. Depth in a landscape comes from grouping values by distance far more than from shading each object individually.
Mitandrema Every clump the same tone, which flattens the canopy into a single shape.
Jereo You should be able to say which clumps are nearer.
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Endrika 10
Shade the trunk, leaving a light strip down one side.
A trunk is a cylinder, so it takes the same treatment as the mug: dark on the shadow side, with a slightly lighter strip right at the edge where light bounces back. Keep the strokes vertical, following the bark.
Mitandrema Shading the trunk evenly, which makes it a flat plank.
Jereo The trunk should have a clear light side and dark side.
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Endrika 11
Add the canopy's shadow onto the trunk.
The foliage above blocks light from the top of the trunk, so the trunk is darkest where it enters the canopy and lightens toward the ground. Missing this is why drawn trunks often look like they belong to a different picture.
Mitandrema A uniformly lit trunk under a heavily shaded canopy.
Jereo The trunk should be darkest at the top.
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Endrika 12
Draw the ground line and the cast shadow.
A short line through the base of the trunk, and a shadow stretching away from the light. Both are one stroke, and without them the tree hovers - which is the single most common thing wrong with beginner landscapes.
Mitandrema A shadow that does not touch the base of the trunk.
Jereo The shadow should start exactly where the trunk meets the ground.
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Endrika 13
Go over the lines you want to keep, and lose the guides.
This is the step that turns a construction drawing into a finished one, and it is the one most people skip. Press harder on the outline and the features; leave the small stuff light. That difference in weight is what makes a drawing look deliberate rather than traced, and it costs thirty seconds.
Mitandrema Going over everything at the same weight, which flattens the drawing back out.
Jereo The outline should be clearly darker than the smallest details.
Ny fomba fijerin'ny vita
Ny sary mitovy amin'izany, fafàna ny famantarana rehetra ary ny andalana fotsiny no tianao ho tazonina, araka ny lanja tianao ho azy. Raha mbola misy andalana afovoany sy endrika mibahana ao amin'ny saryo, dia ity no dingana tsy mbola nataoo - ary maharitra telopolo segondra eo ho eo izany.
Tsy ho toy izao ny anareo, ary tsy tokony ho toy izany. io no fananganana miaraka amin'ny fisintahana ny andry, tsy sary nataon'ny olona iray mba ho ankafizina - ny tanjona dia ny hampiseho aminao izay andalana amin'ny soratrao no nanampy anao.
Ny tena fampianaran'ity iray ity anao
This is the restraint lesson: how to suggest enormous detail with very few marks. The technique - draw the mass, detail only the silhouette edge - transfers directly to hair, grass, crowds, fur and clouds, which is to say most of the things beginners avoid.
It also introduces depth through value grouping. Rather than shading individual objects, you sort everything into a front group and a back group and pull their tones apart. That is how landscapes get their space, and it is a completely different skill from shading a single form.
Ampiasao ireto: Line confidence Proportion Value range
Ny ilainao
A pencil, and ideally a second softer one for the dark clumps. You will be building distinct light and dark masses, and getting them properly apart is much easier with two grades than by pressing harder.
A real tree out of the window works better than a photo here, because the thing you are learning to see is depth in the foliage, and a photograph flattens exactly that.
Raha tsy mandeha tsara ny zavatra
If it looks like a lollipop, you drew one outline round the whole canopy. Break it into five or six overlapping clumps with sky visible between some of them.
If it looks flat, every clump is the same tone. Some clumps are in front and lit; others are behind and in shadow, and that difference is the whole illusion.
Let the branches disappear into the foliage and reappear. A branch that runs unbroken from trunk to leaf edge tells the viewer the canopy is see-through.
Atontay ireo dingana
Avelao hivoaka ny efijery izy io. Atontay amin'ny pejy iray ny taratasy famantarana ny dingana.
Fanontaniana napetrak'ireo olona
- Why does my tree look like a lollipop?
- You drew one outline round the whole canopy. Break it into five or six overlapping clumps instead.
- Do I have to draw individual leaves?
- No, and you should not. Draw masses, then a few leaf marks on the outer edge only.
- How thick should the trunk be?
- Thicker at the base than you think, and it should narrow at every point where a branch leaves it.
- Where do branches go?
- They fork and get thinner every time. A branch never gets thicker as it moves away from the trunk.
- How do I make the canopy look deep?
- Some clumps light, some dark, and let sky show through in a few gaps. Even tone reads as a flat cutout.
- What kind of tree is this?
- A generic broadleaf. Conifers are easier - the same clump method with downward-angled masses.
- My tree looks like it is floating.
- No ground line and no cast shadow. Both take one stroke each and both are essential.
- What should I draw after this?
- The rose, which is the same problem - too much detail - solved with construction instead of restraint.