Sketch Nature

In March/April 2022, I took an online sketching class at GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading, PA. I was looking for an opportunity to get myself back into drawing. My eye problems of summer and fall 2021 into early 2022 had shaken my confidence in my ability to see well enough to do pen and ink drawing, and I thought a regular schedule of sketching would be good to start me moving again.

The class was a lot of fun, the instructor was great, and my goal was met – I did a lot of drawing and I enjoyed myself. I’ll show you what I worked on in a series of posts.
Thanks to my instructor, Zoungy Kligge, and my classmates for a good experience.

In this session of class, our assignment was to sketch nature. Nature! What a big subject. I decided to choose a couple of images of things close to home.

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This picture shows a group of imaginary trees drawn in class. We practiced capturing the forms and shapes of trees as our instructor gave us tips on how to do so.

This picture depicts a real tree – I liked the tangled branches it has. It’s located near a walking path in Plymouth Meeting, PA.

This picture is a stylized tree. I was just enjoying making shapes and forms inside a tree structure.

This picture is of some of my favorite flowers – dandelions.

13 thoughts on “Sketch Nature”

    1. Claudia McGill Post author

      Thank you. I think generally nature is down the list of subjects I enjoy, but this class made me think again, especially about drawing trees, which I really liked.

  2. Laura (PA Pict)

    Another perfect assignment for you! Trees are definitely part of your wheelhouse so it is interesting to see how realistic your imaginary trees are. Your stylized tree is fun.

    1. Claudia McGill Post author

      Thank you. I don’t much like drawing nature scenes (I find them too easy to devolve into me just making scribbles for trees and leaves and so on) but this assignment forced me to look harder and I really did find that drawing trees, especially, had rewards and complexities I had not anticipated.

  3. Nancy

    Nicely done! I struggle with making trees look “right” in many or my watercolors. I think I will take a page from your book (or blog 🙂 ) and just take a sketchbook out to the wood and draw! Thanks for the inspiration!

    1. Claudia McGill Post author

      Thank you. I usually work from photos and when I see something I think that will be fun, I have a good collection. Looking at the actual thing I want to draw in photo or in life, and drawing, has really helped my work, I think.

    1. Claudia McGill Post author

      Thank you. More and more I am enjoying working with trees in pen, I always sort of glossed over their details in the past, but this made me see how to go about things in a different way.

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