Dear friends and visitors,

I have recently been exploring what a plein air sketch can be within the vast expanse of drawing as a medium. 

Having first explored the dynamic uses of brush pens back in 2015 with a series of over 300 life drawings of yachts, I decided it was time to explore how I interpret trees and dense foliage, primarily focusing on mark-making techniques to carry through the idea.

Since beginning this new series of landscape and tree plein air sketches, I have been to two main locations: The wetlands near my home and a new residential subdivision. 

The drawing below, simply titled Paperbark by Bank was one of my first drawings near the wetlands.

My primary focus for Paperbark by Bank was to capture the form of the trunk of the tree and the surrounding foliage mass and the varying thicknesses of undergrowth -- grasses, scrub and other material.

Many other tree drawings resulted from this one location and some are displayed on the website under the Landscape section of the gallery. I will upload more of these drawings progressively.

In the second location, the new subdivision, I initially drew the surrounding houses (both complete and under construction) but my focus moved towards the gnarled and complex structures of paperbark once more.

Gnarled Paperbark is one such drawing that I did at this location. 

A lot of the time I see the drawings as visually akin to drypoint etchings. I think the use of lines and variety of marks reminds me of etching into a plate/matrix and sometimes see the paper as something to 'carve' into with the pen, despite the carving being implied rather than actual.

I will continue to explore these subjects and upload the findings here, on the blog, and place a few of the more standout works up for sale on the website.

Until then, happy creating. 

Tom.