Lately, I've been enjoying the warming weather, the sunshine and the songs of bluebirds out in my local state park. I've found that studying the structure of trees is easiest right now while they are still bare of leaves, and I can really get into bark texture and other details.
I began the painting above with this sketch in my nature journal.
And, I came back to the same field the next day, and painted this young oak tree, still clinging to her leaves.
Canopy branches can feel confusing and hard to follow at this level of detail. I find that focusing in on the part of the scene that intrigues me yields the best results. In this case, the main trunk and lower branches:
One thing that painting these scenes has taught me is to simplify my painting, and focus on the larger forms & values in the landscape. Simplifying the color scheme to just a few colored pencils or pans of paint also helps to create more unity. As Thoreau said, "Simplify, simplify ..."
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