Drawing & Painting Trees Outdoors

As autumn winds down in North America, take advantage of the opportunity to go outside and draw or paint trees. The underlying branch structures are becoming increasingly visible, but you still have some beautiful fall colors for inspiration. I love how God made trees to show us the seasons, just like we experience seasons in our lives.

In the video at top, I share strategies for drawing and painting trees using dry/wet mixed media including Tombow markers, Derwent Inktense pencils, and General’s Sketch & Wash pencils on Canson XL mixed media paper. These materials allow you to draw the tree structures in a controlled way, but then add water to create shading and leaf effects.

This is a great activity for all ages. I have taken students as young as 8 years old/3rd grade outside to draw trees during the autumn. They are up to the task and will love being outside where they can let off some steam. While you’re outside, you can also depict leaves and other objects in a more playful way as I show in the short video below.

If you want to focus solely on depicting the structure of tree using pencil or want to learn more about the theme of trees in the Bible, check out this video:

Happy drawing! Enjoy autumn’s last hurrah.