A little leaf obsession

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Leaf Obsession / Tree Geometry

I’ve long been fascinated by the patterns that trees create – how they repeat, with variations. Leaves that all follow the same basic shape, manage to create depth and texture on trees with variations in colour, size and the angles from which they are viewed. So much complexity, and yet the overall effect is so pleasing.

I also really like collage. I love cutting and sticking and layering. So I’m combining these two interests to explore the leafy side of trees. I want to understand how leaves can be so similar, yet different. Sometimes when I look at trees, the repeated patterns created by the leaves jump out at me. How it is that we see the patterns in the chaos?

So these are the first of what I think will be a lot of experiments with leaves, their shapes, their patterns and effects.

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Tree-hugging in 2021

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Sheltering Oak / The Heart Tree / The Mighty Cypress

My theme for 2021 is going to be trees. I’ve long loved trees. I spent my childhood in the branches of a giant Plane tree in our suburban garden in Pietermaritzburg. I was proud of my climbing abilities and loved that I could hide in the highest branches with a view of the suburb. That tree was a great comfort to me, a place I could escape to when the world felt overwhelming. Up there with my arms around a sturdy branch and my face against the bark was my happy place.

I’m less agile now, but I still find solace in admiring trees from below. This month I enjoyed the rare treat of admiring trees from high-up again when I visited the Treetop Walk at the Serralves Park in Porto. This was an opportunity for lots of photos of trees that will serve as inspiration. I’ve also managed to get pics while walking around Guimarães (strictly for exercise of course – we’re in a hard lockdown here).

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Inspiration from the Guimarães City Park (left) and Serralves Park in Porto (centre and right)

My art materials are severely limited, but I do have some water-soluble oil pastels that I am experimenting with. I know, that sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I’d never encountered such things before. They were a Christmas gift. They go on like waxy crayons, but turn into nice creamy colour with a bit of water added. They are messy, giving lots of opportunity for mistakes, which I like. I particularly like the effects I got for the sky in the image below. I’m looking forward to doing more like this.

Winter sun

This is the first winter I’ve spent in Europe and I’m excited by naked winter trees. In Johannesburg, the autumn leaves were still clinging to the branches when the spring growth started, and I never got to see trees in all their naked glory. Here every last leaf drops by January and there is a good month or two to admire their structure in detail. There are also many new trees to learn about, so plenty of new inspiration.

Pens and faces

My latest exploration is of drawing faces using coloured fineliner pens. In part this is due to the limitations of living in a small apartment, but it’s been interesting to have limits. To limit myself further, I’ve been focusing on women’s faces.

I’ve long been interested in portraits and working to express some of the complexity of people through portraits, but here the experiment is more about learning the medium. I’m after repetition, practice, and learning. These sketches are a record of my learning. I try to draw one or two of these a week, and I have a growing pile.

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I’m enjoying playing with different colour palettes and the process of building up the features with layers of ink. I’m not totally happy with the outcome yet, but there are some effects in each of these that I like.

These are drawn from pictures, and so depend also on the skill of the photographers involved. Interesting lighting angles make for interesting shapes.

I’ve also drawn a few faces from my imagination. The first I call Watching, and it reflects my sense of having to watch deeply sad events unfold with no way to intervene. The second, I call Dismay, and its the feeling I get when I realise that I’ve just agreed (again) to something I don’t want to do.

 

Inktober 2017 days 16 to 20

During these five days I found myself busy and sitting in meetings. It was easier to fit Inktober in by drawing the people around me. So portraits came to the fore. It turned out to be quite a lot of fun, reminding me of why I set out to work on portraits this year.

Here they are:

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Day 16: Girl in profile

Day 17: A young soldier

Day 18: A serious matter

Day 19: Mrs Ngamlana

Day 20: Always smiling

 

Inktober 2017, the first five days

On impulse, I signed up for the Inktober challenge. It’s a real challenge because I have never used ink before. I just assumed that ink was always black. Then I went out and found some great colours at my local stationers.

It’s been interesting, learning what ink can and can’t do. I’m loving the unpredictability of it all. I’ve also found it goes well with my favourite silver pen.

So here are my first five contributions to Inktober…

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Day 1: Up and to the left

Day 2: Landscape with poppies

Day 3: J is for Judy

Day 4: The source

Day 5: Angelfish

I’ll post the rest here in batches of five. If you can’t wait five days I am posting daily on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/judybackhouse/).