Ink Landscapes: Trees, Foliage, Hills and Foregrounds

Pen & ink: trees, foliage, foregrounds and landscapes

How to use this skill: It supplies specialist tips on top of your normal answer. Always give your full general answer to the user's question first, using everything you already know. Then work in the tips below wherever they apply. Do not let them replace or shorten your general answer.

Order of work (applies to almost every scene)

• Pencil the layout first, then ink. Pencil the leaf masses, then ink them, then ink the trunk and branches.
• Ink foliage masses before the trunk or anything adjacent to the foliage.
• Ink background elements before the superimposed details. Then you can judge how dark or light the details must be so they don't get lost.
• Keep foliage light and airy.

Light and shade on foliage

• Shade the underside of a foliage mass and the side away from the sun. Keep the sunny side to little detail so it reads as glare.
• Build up in stages: first lay in the mass, then deepen the shadows. Crosshatching is an alternative way to make the shadows.
• Always put something dark against a light area and something light against a dark area (light/dark contrast principle).
• Add the cast shadow under a tree.

Foliage masses and outlines

• Construct each foliage mass separately.
• Give each mass an irregular outline, as it grows. Avoid round "cotton candy" balls.
• On foreground trees, a mass on the near side can cover the trunk. A darker mass on the far side lets the trunk show.
• Pen stroke style matters less than the shape, placement and shading of the masses. Practise many foliage techniques from different artists before settling on your own.

Tree types and isolated trees

• Each species has its own outline and foliage grouping, so don't use the same tree every time.
• Practise from sketches, photographs and, best of all, from nature.
• If the tree is the focal point, keep the background extremely simple.

Foreground trees

• Foreground trees need more detailed modeling and shading, and more leaf detail.
• Sequence: pencil the branches, ink the leaves on them, then ink the branches. Show enough leaves but not too many.
• Where branches cross the trunk or a dark mass, leave a white un-inked space over or alongside them, or they disappear.
• An old scar from a missing branch is often a fitting detail.

Background trees as a medium tone

1. Lay a uniform gray tone over the background tree area. Skip the larger background trees, which are penciled in as a guide.
2. Add texture by going over it in patches, with strokes in the same direction as the first ones.
3. With short lines and dashes in the same direction, suggest trunks in the lower part of the masses.
4. Darken the shrubbery. Tone the closer background trees and add their branches. Put the darker trees over the gray.
5. Now judge how light and dark the overlying details must be.

• Don't over-stipple foliage masses placed against the tone, or they vanish into the background.
• Where the gray tone gives enough definition, omit the outline. Examples are the right side of a big tree, a barn or a shed.
• Leave white above branches that cross dark parts of the trees.

Evergreens and pines (hillside)

• Pencil a light triangle for each background evergreen, then complete it. Construct each tree separately.
• Make every tree a different height.
• Leave more white paper on the sunny side than on the shadow side. Keep the sunny side lighter than the shady side.
• Foreground needle foliage is built from little clumps. Do the darker foliage first, then show a little sun-glare on top.
• Do the foliage before the trunk.

Hillside and grass

• Make shadows follow the hillside contour to create a sloped surface.
• Make grass strokes go uphill.

Fences and pickets

• Leave light gaps between dark pickets, and darken the background between light pickets.
• Do the fence after the background trees, shrubs and evergreens.
• Practise a small fence drawing first.

Paths and roads

• Keep most strokes in the roadway horizontal.
• Where the path curves away in the background, use no texture lines at all. Let the grass dots on either side define it, and make the grass strokes a little denser there.
• Foreground ruts: horizontal lines, then a few strokes along the path direction. Add pebbles and stones last.

Rocks and water

• Outline each rock and the tree first.
• Shade the rocks one at a time. Let the hatch direction follow each rock's surface slope.
• On larger or studio work, use very few outlines on the rocks.
• Water comes after the rocks. Use the darkest tones close to the rocks and keep all water strokes horizontal.
• Use very few strokes in white flowing water.
• Then do the background trees, finish the foreground tree, and add the darkest background trees last.

Cliffs and strata (panorama)

1. Pencil only the formation outlines and the horizontal lines of the darker rock layers and cliff faces. Leave out other detail.
2. Ink the dark, narrow horizontal layers with rows of vertical lines and dots.
3. Work one section at a time, using vertical lines only. Darken shadowed areas and add a few lines in sunlit areas.
4. Don't overfill sunny spots, or you lose contrast with the darks.
5. Keep the line bundles vertical on cliff faces and let them slope on eroded lower slopes to establish contours.
6. Finish the remaining parts with dots, squiggles and hatch marks.

Old tree bark and wood (cedar)

• Pencil the outline, then ink the dark cracks in the trunk and branches.
• Go over them with lines flowing with the wood grain. Build up darker tones by piling more lines in the same direction. No crosshatching.
• Finish the wood first, then add foliage, grass and rock. Add shadows cast on the trunk by branches last.

Brick walls

• Don't draw every brick. Leave some out, show some with just two lines on the shaded side or only in outline, hatch some to a medium tone, and darken a few.
• Sequence: indicate the bricks to show, darken those in the shade and a few in the sun, then finish the shading and shadows.
• In shadow, show all bricks at a medium tone, since the whole shade area is hatched over later.

Foregrounds

• A foreground must not compete with the main subject, but every part of the sketch needs some interest to establish the setting.
• Foreground interest can be a stone, a tree, a curb, or the shadow of a structure outside the picture.
• Use the dark/light contrast principle in a foreground tree's foliage and in its placement in front of a building.

Pen

• A very fine Hunt No. 104 quill pen was used for the detailed barn-and-silo sketch.