Trees today

Was feeling a bit off-colour today so I thought I wouldn't attempt a picture.  I thought I would play a bit -  try out some textures, experiment.  But in the end I did a sort of a picture.

I started scribbling with graphite and conte sticks.  I quite like the effect you can get if you mix them together and also use a rubber.  I did some scribbles of tree shapes and from this emerged the idea of trees in front of a terrace of buildings - very New Town.

Emerging New Town Trees

I started drawing with graphite stick and white conte.  What to do next?  Decided to add a little ink.

Emerging New Town Trees

I thought if I used ink diluted with water to sketch in the buildings this would keep them subdued, behind the trees.  However, this was a bit rough and ready and a bit too dominant.  So I added some white acrylic.

Emerging New Town Trees

I also added oil crayon and oilbar and more acrylic.  However by this time the paper was starting to rip a bit (notice the little flap by the right hand tree!).  I dithered a bit about the treatment of the roof, and added some blue and purple oil crayon, blue ink and then painted over it with white acrylic again.  Looking at the trees, I wanted to get the right feel to them - wanted to give the impression of movement - so did a liitle more graphite and  rubber.  I also decided to add in some tree shadows on the grass.

Emerging New Town Trees

So this is how it turned out.  Well, I mean, this is as far as I took it.  I've brought it home to reflect on it.  My initial reaction was that it was not abstract enough.  I had wanted to try and capture the feel of the earlier sketch.  So I thought I'd do another drawing of three trees and not use any paint at all.  Same technique - combination of graphite and conte.

Drawing of Three Trees

Is this better than the New Town Trees?  I don't know.  Time will tell.