Winter Trees

I love a winter landscape! But I'm confounded by the tops of trees. They are so twiggy - how do we sketch that? For the tree I sketched in this post I used a colored pencil. It worked well for that sketch, but I might not want to do that for an all-ink sketch, like the one above.

One way to solve the twiggy tree-top issue is to draw evergreens! Like these, above, at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. That's a Jun Kaneko sculpture in front of the evergreen trees and bushes.

By the way, this book was incredibly good and I highly recommend it. But it will make you cry.

This food truck is near my house and we like to get burritos from there sometimes. When I started this sketch my goal was to sketch and paint the truck - it is a dramatic black and green and hot pink - but I got so distracted by the winter trees! 

Another reason I'm looking at trees more closely is that I started following artist Jo Blaker on Instagram (@jo_blaker) and she has started posting with the hashtag #ayearoftrees. I love the idea and have started participating because Memphis is such a tree-rich place, which I love showing off. Also, whenever I think I don't have anything to sketch, there will always be a tree there.