How To Sketch Trees


Step 1.

Start your guidelines on your paper in horizontal or landscape orientation. Begin about halfway down the paper 
and light sketch two horizontal lines, the landmass from the right that comes out near the center of the page. Another piece of landmass.

Step 2.

Add four shapes to your landmasses. One shape at the left looks like a candy drop, the other a lolly-pop, an upside-down ice cream cone, and last a tall cylinder to the right. Yes, those are trees! This helps you to see where they go and their general shape

Step 3.

This is where you start adding recognizable details. Behind the three trees that look like treats are more trees in the background. We can represent those extras by placing stick-like placements for future details. And as you look at the reference picture, there are plenty of limbs on that tree in the foreground. Adding a few limbs helps take away the confusion.

Step 4.


You may be wondering how in the world can you add all those trees, limbs, and leaves. It isn't an impossible task. A little patience and an idea of general shapes will help tremendously. Check out those newly added circles around the background trees and foreground trees with added limbs. Also, there are spirals around the lolly-pop and cone. That helps with direction, which way are the main tree clusters going, and how thick their mass is. Look at yourself, you're becoming the pro! No! Don't throw your picture away. Have fun with it. Keep drawing and you'll see some great results.

Step 5.


You've wiped the sweat from your brow. Great job, guys! Keep moving forward, bit by bit. The leaves are added on the background trees, looking like wiggly lines and puffballs. Midway we have our three treats looking like pine trees. See how the strokes fan out from where the spirals were. And with patience, you're adding in more limbs to the main foreground tree with amazing leaves. You even added the small house and bridge in the background. Look at that pond! Those lines represent the reflection of the trees and even the sky. Oh, you can hardly see the ducks, but they are there. Adding some shapes will enhance the look of nature. For your tutoring pleasure, I've added two more steps that you may like. At least I found it fun to create

Step 6.

Check it out! If you don't know it already, those are the basic shapes in nature -- the ball, cube, cone, and cylinder. You can see a lot of those shapes in the drawing you are doing right now. Then when I speak of tone that is the general lightness or darkness of an object. Shading is the portion of an object away from the light. Shadow or "Casting Shadow" is the shadow from falling on another surface. The texture is the final or "special" effect drawn on the surface of an object. It may seem rudimentary, but these principles will stick after a while, bringing to you more technique as an artist. 

Step 7.




Special Effects! How in the world do you create those fantastic leaves and pond reflection without shading, in tiny little strokes, your life away. The secret is in how you hold the pencil and the type of pencil's edge. Holding a sharpened pencil in normal writing form with fingers in the middle or near the lead allows for very thin strokes. Holding the pencil at 45 degrees or near level to the table underhand allows you to stroke from the side of the pencil of the flat side. Oh, I'm not stopping here because a chiseled pencil is a dream. You can find those in the art store and chisel to your heart's content with sandpaper. Look at the different effects in this step. Practice these strokes and see the difference

Step 8.


Your final result may pleasantly surprise you, look exactly like this picture, or turn out to be totally different. Learn, expand, practice, find out which way is the most comfortable with you. In the end, I'm hoping you had fun discovering new things in the drawing! Thanks for stopping by and saying hi! It's been my pleasure