Trees

FOR ALL SEASONS

WINTER: THE COLOURFUL SEASON

We learn, in elementary school, that trees have brown trunks and green leaves. Usually, unless you are a botanist, you lose interest in trees, and so you never come to realize that tree trunks are NOT brown, nor are leaves green. All drawing/painting manuals start by dispelling that notion early on. This was based on a colour picture which had pretty much the same colours as the ones shown here.

THE HEART OF DARKNESS

This is from a picture of an early misty morning in the forest, where the sun comes from behind (back lit). So I gave it a whirl. It is basically monochrome, and you are dealing with silhouettes and shades.

By the way, heart of darkness is, of course, that novel by Joseph Conrad, of a foray into a thick forest in Congo, which inspired the movie Apocalypse Now.

COLONIALE?

Our youngest went to daycare on the plateau, one block west of the intersection Saint-Denis & Mont Royal. After I drop him off, I walk to my office. This is from fall scene, when the leaves have changed colour to yellow, and I would facing the sun. It gives great reflections. I painted this from a picture. With regard to the buildings on the right, rather than paint them individually, because of the low light, and the low light contrast, I laid grey colour first, then lifted some colour with a wet brush. I gave this one to Lotfi B.

LEMON TREE: RIP

This is from a picture of a lemon tree in our house in Tunisia. I took the picture with my phone, looking up. It was taken on the first week of March, 2011. It had all the things I like: front light, high contrast, and I loved what the sun did with the leaves: translucent because of the intensity of the sunlight. My sister clipped the tree at every home visit, until it became an ugly hopeless stub, and then it was uprooted. Too bad.