One of my favourite subjects to draw and paint are trees. On their own, they provide a variety of design opportunities. In a group, they can provide a sense of scale to a larger landscape. They can be complex or simple. It all depends on the artist’s perspective and goal in the piece.

I like to explore three things when it comes to painting trees:

Each of these is a language of it’s own and deserves its own blog post (and maybe I can dive deeper into them in the future). But for now, I’ll share a couple examples of each so you know what I mean.

Before we dive into the examples below, if you’re interested in learning how to draw and paint trees, I just shared an in-depth tutorial on my Patreon site. Have a look!

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Exploring Shape

In the above example, the artist utilises a mosaic pattern, simplifying the design into predominantly vertical elements interrupted subtly by thin horizontal/diagonal branches. There is little focus on colour, which emphasises the simplistic shapes even more. This 2D “stained glass effect” provides an illustrative language for the artist to explore trees.

In the above example the artist utilises strong shadow shapes to pull the viewer back towards the trees. The color is strong, but not the important aspect. The painting would be just as effective in greyscale.

In these two examples the artists add their own stylistic flourishes to paint trees in a unique way.

The conclusion is that shape is a powerful tool to share your artistic voice. It often relies heavily on values (dark vs. light) rather than colour to create a strong design. It’s especially effective in illustration when you want to convey a sense of fantasy or whimsy.

Exploring Color

In these examples, the artists rely on strong complimentary colour schemes to draw our attention. Using contrast and heavy shadows in addition to the strong color, they convey a certain time of day when the sun is low in the sky. These paintings are very much about the color.

This artist grabs our attention with a complimentary colour scheme and creative shape language to create a slightly abstract design within the tree.

The conclusion is that colour can be a powerful tool in directing the viewer to our focus. Colour can also convey mood and time of day or be a way to explore abstraction within a recognizable subject.

Exploring Light

Light has always been a fascinating subject to artists. The way it dances between fluttering leaves or casts interesting shadow shapes or transforms the colors in a forest can be a subject in itself.

This artist captures the sun just above the horizon peeking through the dense trees. Utilizing color, they draw us in, leaving the trees rather abstract and simplified. The painting is more about the effect of light coming through the forest than it is about the trees.

Here we have a realistic scene but again it’s very much about the light and atmosphere. The artist uses a vertical composition to leave space for those strong light rays piercing through the mist. The trees are secondary to capturing that magical atmosphere.

Here we have an abstraction, hinting at trees with minimal shapes. The artist placed the sun almost directly in the center, and uses warm colors and bold brush strokes to convey light. The piece doesn’t scream “shape” or “color” alone, but showcases sense of light at its core.

The conclusion is that we will probably need to use color and shape in creative ways to convince the viewer that the painting is about a sense of light. As long as we don’t give too much emphasis to one or the other, and have a strong understanding of how light interacts with trees, we can achieve our goal.

In order to gain that understanding, it’s important to observe nature up close with our own eyes. Photographs get light wrong a lot. Cameras overexpose highlights or underexpose shadows and leave us with dull, lifeless versions of the real thing.

Plein air painting is a challenge, but the more you can observe the effects of light in person, the better. And sometimes, it’s just a good excuse to spend time in nature!

Need some inspiration? Here is an example of me sketching in the forest:

There are so many fun ways to explore trees in our art. I’d love to know who your favorite “tree artists” are – those who paint trees in magical ways. I am always falling back on trees as my comfort subject and I think they deserve more credit as a standalone subject in art.