75 cm (w) x 55 cm (h), conté and pastels on acid-free coloured-ground ‘Canson’ paper.
Date produced: October 2001 - June 2003

Drawn completely on-site on the side of King George Avenue, North Brighton, between October 2001 and June, 2003.

These two views are of the same tree, viewed about 40° apart. I have used these two views, to provide related information about the forms within this tree – it was felt that one view alone wouldn’t describe enough of the tree’s forms, whether within the main trunk, the main branches or within the visible roots.

The horizon has been drawn in (about two-thirds the way up the fence at the back of the tree) and is an important reference for the drawing.

I have drawn thin imaginary contour lines over all parts of the tree to give a better idea of the cross-sectional shapes within all forms, and provide visual clues about the orientation of these forms. I have also drawn in an imaginary grid over the ground, to give a better idea of the tree’s orientation between both views, and to describe the ground’s general planar form.

I have deliberately used colour here to reinforce the understanding of form and space. The scheme used here, was developed over many drawings, and involves ‘colouring’ a surface based on its distance to me, using oranges and yellows to indicate close surfaces, and blues to indicate more distant surfaces. That is, the closer a surface was, the more orange it was coloured. The more distant a surface was, the bluer it was coloured. This basic scheme is an ‘exaggerated aerial perspective’.

I also wanted to try to express the space and air around the forms using pale blues to surround appropriate sections of the forms.

This whole approach, of using an exaggerated aerial perspective along with pale blues around appropriate sections of the forms in my drawings, required working with very subtle changes of colour, that had to relate to all of the other colour used in the images.