Part 2. The Drawing Lesson
The legs of my stool sink a couple inches into the thick layer of pine needles which carpet the area and encircle occasional lava boulders. Although worn by time, the angled rocks remain sharp-edged and are home to an interesting patchwork of grey-green lichens. Already I am distracted with so much to look at. I’ll save the lichens for later.
I pull out my sketch pad and study the tree before me. That grand sweep of branches to the left calls for brushwork, but first, with pencil I lightly sketch in a few guidelines to place the tree in the center of the paper. I pour a small amount of water from my ever-present canteen into the old tin can, then reach for brush and paint pan. Using a light grey tone, I dab watercolor onto the page to indicate masses of foliage in a general way and carefully stroke in the vertical trunk. The tone is uneven and almost too dark on one branch, but I decide to keep on. Once watercolor has been laid down, it is hard to rework the paint without muddying the effect.
While the sketch dries I walk over to look at the view. The South Warner road curves around the upper end of Patterson Meadow, a fenced pasture more than a half mile long that lies in its own sage-dotted basin surrounded by forest land. A small creek traces a line through lush green grass and wildflowers. Several head of cattle are grazing at the lower end. Just out of sight is the Range Riders cabin and corral which we spotted when we drove in. The Warners have long been used as summer grazing range. Ranchers and sheepherders moved into this corner of the world about the time of the 1849 California gold rush.
Back to business I dig out my pen to ink the drawing. It’s a joy to draw a tree–the stalwart trunk, gesturing branches, textured bark, details of needles and cones. Starting from the top to avoid smearing the ink with my hand, I indicate needle bundles near the ends of branches and then work down the trunk. A solid outline is not the best; that would look like a coloring book, so I ink sketchy lines to show parts of different branches and the trunk silhouette. I fill in much of the left side of the trunk to suggest roundness, shading for a slight 3-D effect. I know the trunk is covered with puzzle-like sections of bark, but because it is rather narrow on the page, I can only indicate a certain roughness with scraggly lines. For variety I leave some of the watercolor splotches free of marks. On the right side I sketch wavy lines for the lichen-covered dead branches. When it looks like a Ponderosa Pine, I finish the sketch by adding ground contours. A flat lava rock, a suggestion of slope, a rough area, and clumps of grass complete the scene. I’m careful to make the tree appear to rise out of the ground, connected in a natural-looking way by the dry grass at the base. The landscape is part of the tree, the tree is part of the landscape, a unit…to be continued.