Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna is one of the commonest trees in the British countryside, ranging from the far south to all but the most northern areas.  Although there are tons of mature hawthorn trees, both in woodland, fields, and uplands;  you also see it in hedges and scrub-land.

This tree provides one of my favourite sights in mid-winter.  A branch of hawthorn, still heavy with crimson berries, festooned with the pale ashy greys and greens of lichen is a thing of real beauty.

The trees can live for hundreds of years, often all that’s left of a long-vanished hedgerow.  Sometimes growing in harsh climates, their twisted and gnarled shapes make individual trees into landmarks.

Identification: Tree shape

Hawthorn trees are a modest 2 to 10 metres tall.  They have a straggly habit, often with emergent branches.  They often appear alone, perhaps on a limestone outcrop, or in the middle of a field of grazing sheep.

Having been used for centuries as a hedging plant, they frequently appear along field margins; both within hedges, and as remnants of hedgerows which have long since been neglected.

They’re easily identified by their spiny branches.

In winter, these can be confused with the branches of the Blackthorn Prunus spinosa which also bear spikes, although Blackthorn branches tend to look darker and more condensed than the hawthorn.  Also, the buds of Blackthorn grown on the spines themselves, whilst those of hawthorn emerge from the same point as the spines.

In summer and autumn, it’s hard to mistake a hawthorn for any other species.  The distinctive leaves, white flowers, and crimson berries make it a simple tree to identify.

Identification: Leaves

Hawthorn leaves start out as a vivid, pale, spring green.  They become tougher with age, ending up a dusty dark green colour.  Undersides of the leaves are paler.  The leaves are deeply divided, and toothed.

They’re about 6cm long and are often asymmetrical from the main rib.  Leaf shape is highly variable, even between the leaves on one branch.  Leaves turn yellow in autumn, before falling, leaving the berries behind.

Identification: Flowers

Flowers are white or pink, with five petals.  Anthers are a pinkish colour, turning to purplish or brown.  These flowers appear in May (hence the hawthorn’s other name) and form frothy masses in the hedgerows.  They grow in flat-topped inflorescences.

Their smell is sickly sweet, and flies love it.  Lots of people think it smells a bit unpleasant, and reminiscent of death.  This is no surprise, the chemical trimethylamine appear both in corpses and in hawthorn blossom.  In fact, people used to say that the flowers smelt very similar to the stench of bubonic plague.  This probably accounts for the custom of never bringing hawthorn inside the house.

Identification: Fruit

The berries of hawthorn are crimson, with yellow-orange flesh.  They’re referred to as “haws”.   Each one has one big pip in its centre.

The haw skin is shiny, and can be anything from vivid scarlet to an almost purplish deep crimson in older berries.  The fruits are a great source of vitamin C, and can be made into jelly.  More importantly, they provide vital nutrients for birds such as Redwing and Fieldfare, especially in the depths of winter.

Identification: Bark

Hawthorn bark is grey brown, with lots of small scales.  As hawthorn is so prevalent, you may well see it in hedges and waysides where the plant may not be large enough to have a proper identifiable tree-trunk.

Similar species

The Midland hawthorn Craetegus oxyacanthoides can easily be confused with the common hawthorn.  Differences are that the Common hawthorn has flowers with only one stigma, whereas the Midland hawthorn bears two.  And (logically), the Common hawthorn has only one seed per fruit, whereas the Midland hawthorn has two.  Berries of the latter are a brighter red, and more rounded.  Midland hawthorn leaves are rounder, and less deeply cut.

Habitats vary too.  Midland hawthorn is more of a tree than a hedge species, and is more tolerant of shade.  It likes chalky soils and is often found deep within shaded woodland.

Most garden cultivars are Midland, rather than Common hawthorn.

History: Folklore

Hawthorn is thick with foklore and superstition.

I have a friend from Ireland who was furious when I put a hawthorn log on the fire, and opined that the “wee folk” would come and get me.  He was dead serious, and from the look on his face that was NOT something one wanted to happen, so I took the log off again.

There are many tales of Fairy queens and supernatural beings living in hawthorn.  To damage any part of the tree, especially of a lone tree, could bring down their fury with disastrous and fatal results.

As mentioned above, the smell of hawthorn is similar to that of a corpse, so it was not brought into the house.  To do so would be to invite illness and death in.  There’s a possibility that this referred especially to the Midland hawthorn, which was more prevalent in the 16th – 18th centuries and has a stronger smell than the common species.

However, boughs of May (hawthorn) would be put outside houses, and decorated with wild flowers.  Having the flowers outside was clearly not seen as a bad thing.

Before the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1752, the month of May arrived a little later than it does now.  The timing of the hawthorn blossoming probably dove-tailed more accurately with the start of the month, and with May day.  The old adage, “cas’t ne’er a clout [vest] til May be out” refers to the blossom, not the end of the month.

History: Religion

There are many associations with pre-Christian religions.  Westminster Abbey is built on a site called “Thorney island”, after a sacred grove of hawthorn that grew there.

It’s the sixth tree of the Celtic Ogham religion, associated with love, protection, and the heart.

The flowers, coming as they do in the full burst of spring, have long been associated with fertility.  The Hawthorn tree was the precursor of the maypole.  Blossoming occurred around the time of the Celtic festival of Beltane.  Weddings often occurred at the same time, and there are records of boughs of Hawthorn being put on the beds of newlyweds to bring love and fertility.  How this tallies with the fear of inviting illness and death is unclear.

On May day, the May queen and the Green man would unite and bless the land with fertility for the coming year.  Hawthorn blossom played an important part in the ceremony.

Interestingly, the link between faith and the hawthorn did not stop with the onset of Christianity.  The crown of thorns and Moses’s burning bush are said to be hawthorn.

There’s also the legend of the Holy thorn of Glastonbury, planted by Joseph of Aramathea, who owned Jesus’s tomb.  He was also Mary’s uncle, and happened to be travelling with a chalice of Jesus’s sweat, and one of Jesus’s blood.  As you do.  Stopping, he thrust his staff into the ground where it grew into the Glastonbury hawthorn.  This plant (not, of course, the original tree) still grows on Glastonbury tor, and flowers twice a year; once in May and once at Christmas.  What Joseph used to replace his lost staff is lost in the mists of time.

History: Food & Medicine

Hawthorn leaves were eaten, referred to as “bread and cheese”, and haws were used for jellies and wines.

Medicinally, it was used in tincture to aid a whole slew of complaints: heart-trouble, anxiety, and loss of appetite.  In traditional Chinese medicine, it’s used to lower blood pressure.

Uses

Hawthorn has been used since the 16th century, when land enclosure first took off, as a hedging plant.  It forms spiky, impenetrable barriers.

It’s wood is hard and pale, and is used for wood-turning, veneers, and tool handles.  It burns at high temperatures, so is good for fire-wood and charcoal.  As long as you’re not worried by the folklore and superstitions, that is…

Young leaves are edible, as are the berries.  Berries are best made into jams and ketchups as they may cause mild stomach upsets in some.  Buds are delicious in salads.

It is a wonderful plant for both birds and insects. Not only can birds feed off the berries in winter, but the growth habit and thickets makes a perfect space for building nests.

Long-tailed tits Aegithalos caudatus in amongst Blackberry and Hawthorn blossom

Over 300 species of insect rely on the Hawthorn.  Moths relying on it range from the Lappet moth Gastropacha quercifolia, which resembles dead oak leaves as an adult, to the Light Emerald Campaea margaritata.  The latter turns up in my house on late summer evenings, and is a beautiful animal.

Bees, flies, and wasps pollinate the flowers and rely on the nectar.

Small mammals such as the Dormouse also eat the berries, which are packed full of anti-oxidants.

Hazel dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius with berries, (but not Hawthorn berries)

Hawthorn is a popular and wise choice for those wanting to encourage wildlife to their gardens.

Threats

Increasingly, hedgerows are being grubbed up to allow access to more efficient farm machinery.  Old hedges, which need a lot of maintenance, ore often replaces with barbed wire.

Hawthorn can be affected by fire blight, gall mites, and aphids.  However, there’s no suggestion that the hawthorn is about to disappear from out landscape, which is a big relief.

Conclusion

Hawthorn is common, and easy to recognise.  It’s flowers and berries make it a well loved tree and shrub, and it’s usefulness in hedging can’t be underestimated.  Providing a haven for wildlife, a wealth of history and folklore, and bearing edible leaves and berries; there’s a whole lot to recommend this tree.  It’s also very beautiful.

Sources for this blog include websites of The Woodland Trust, Trees for life, the Green Parent, and Naturespot.

The post Trees: Hawthorn appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

This is the third in my series on common trees, and this time it’s the Ash tree under the spotlight.

The Ash Fraxinus excelsior is one of our commonest trees, and is steeped in folklore.  It’s easy to identify, and the timber is extraordinarily strong and versatile

Identification: Tree shape

Ash trees have domes crowns, and grow up to 40m.  In winter, they can be easily recognized as the ends of branches and twigs turn upwards.

They also have distinctive matt, black buds which would be hard to mistake for any other species.  Ash grows in woodland, fields, and many other habitats.  It’s one of the commonest British trees with over 150 million mature trees in the UK (The Conversation, 2019).

Identification: Leaves

Leaves of the ash are opposite. Each compound leaf comprises 9 to 13 short-stalked leaflets up to 7cm long, in opposite pairs.  There is always one lone leaflet at the tip.  This arrangement is called “Odd-pinnate”.  (For more on compound vs simple leaves, have a look at my blog).  Leaflets have long tips and small teeth on the margins (for more on leaf shape and margins check out my blog).

Identification: Flowers

Flowers of the ash emerge before the leaves (which are often amongst the last to unfurl in spring).  Female and male flowers are carried on separate twigs, are without petals, and look like little purplish tufts.

Identification: Fruit

Like the Sycamore, the Ash has winged seeds, or samara (for more on samaras, which are basically just winged achenes, check out my blog.  These are borne in clusters, with a single wing.  Like Sycamore, ash seeds spin to the ground in a most satisfying manner.

Identification: Bark

Twigs are grey, and the tree bark is greyish-green.  It becomes rough and fissured in older trees.

Similar Species

Several trees have similar odd-pinnate leaves, but should be easy to distinguish from the Ash.  These include Elderberry Sambucus nigra, which is smaller, has highly scented frothy blossoms, pale bark, and lots of juicy purple berries in autumn.  Walnut Juglans regia, tends to be a more substantial tree.  It too has compound leaves, although these tend to be a paler green than the Ash.  Walnut flowers are carried in green catkins, and the fruit is (of course) the edible walnut.

Elderberry Sambucus nigra

Mountain ash or Rowan Sorbus aucuparia is another similar species.  However, it tends to be much smaller than the ash, has frothy white blossoms, and carries wonderful clusters of orange berries.  The leaves have sharply serrated margins, and are blunter than ash.  Leaflets are stalkless.

Rowan Sorbus aucuparia

History

In Scandinavia, Ash was worshipped as a sacred tree and Odin (the most powerful of the Norse gods) was said to have carved man from a piece of ash.

The Tree of the World, an enormous mythological Ash, appears in Nordic mythology.  Also known as Yggrasil, its branches, trunk and roots entwined heaven, earth, and the underworld.

Ash was said to ward off witches, and a piece of ash carried in the pocket would ward them off, as well as keeping you safe from goblins and snakes.  Farming tools made of iron and ash would protect the crops from witchcraft.  Burning ash logs would chase the evil spirits from a room.  Ash growing with Oak and Hawthorn signified the realms of the Fairy folk and otherworldly spirits.

Medicinally, passing an ill child through a cleft in an Ash would help healing.  If you had a break or rupture, splitting a sapling and passing the patient through it would help.  You bound up the tree (and, one assumes, the patient) and when the tree had healed, so too had the patient.

Uses

Ash keys are edible if you boil them a few times, then pickle them.

However, it’s the wood of ash that makes the tree so valuable.  It’s almost white; and incredibly durable, flexible, and pliable.

Items made from ash include sledges, furniture, oars, tool handles, skis, hockey sticks, and even form part of the Morgan car.  Rob Penn wrote a rather wonderful tree about the plethora of things that could be made from just one ash tree, “The Man Who Made Things out of Trees”.  My other half makes gravel bikes using ash, and has plenty to say about it’s natural shock-absorbing capacities, and beauty.  If it seems unlikely, take a look at his website, Twmpa Cycles.

Threats

As with all British trees, ash are cleared when hedgerows are grubbed up and habitat is lost to development.

This amazing tree is also under serious threat from Ash dieback.  This fungal disease is projected to wipe out 95% of our ash trees, in a similar way to the eradication of Elm when Dutch Elm disease appeared. It’s estimated this loss could cost the UK up to£15 billion (The Conversation, May 2019).

The fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus (previously known as Chalara fraxinea) affects the ash in a number of ways.  It causes the leaves to wither, and the crown of the tree to thin.  It also causes legions and cracks in the bark which allow the entry of other pathogens.

Young saplings will succumb quickly, but older trees hold out until another agent, such as Honey fungus, attacks it in its weakened form.

Ash dieback symptoms

There is no cure or treatment for Ash dieback, and it seems likely that our love for imported plants explains why the fungus is now ravaging the countryside.

For more on Ash dieback (also known as Chalara or Chalara dieback), check out the Forestry Commission website, and for information on the economic affects have a look at The Conversation’s article.

Conclusion

 The ash is a beautiful tree, and common across the UK.  Its wood is incredibly useful, and its folklore many-layered and interesting.  The fact that such a part of the British countryside will soon become a rarity causes me a great deal of pain.  All I can suggest is that while many of our ash trees remain, get out into nature and enjoy them.

Little owl Athene noctua with Ash leaves behind

References for this blog include the excellent “The Greenwood Trees” by Christina Hart-Davies, and the Reader’s Digest “The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain” (out of print but commonly available second-hand), and Collins Flower Guide by David Streeter.

Take a look at my other blogs on British trees, the Oak and the Sycamore.

The post Trees: Ash appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Identification: Tree shape

The tree grows to 35m and has a domed outline, with dense foliage.  Trees often have heavy lower branches.  It’s a deciduous species, and grows fast in a wide range of habitats, including windy and salty areas.

Identification: Leaves

Sycamore have large, distinctive five lobed leaves, 6 – 17cm wide.  Upper lobes cut through the leaf to around the mid-point, while the bottom lobes may not be fully separated from the rest of the leaf.  Margins are bluntly toothed (for more on leaf margins see my blog https://lizzieharper.co.uk/2013/11/leaf-shape-margins-venation-and-position/).  The upper surface of the leaf is a dark green in mature leaves, paler underneath.

Leaves frequently have black spots, known as “tar spot”.  This is caused by the Rhytisma acerimun fungus and seems to do no harm.

Leaf stalks are frequently flushed a striking scarlet.

In autumn, the leaves tend to turn pale yellow to ochre, and often are still flushed with green when they fall from the tree.  For information on how to illustrate an autumn Sycamore leaf, check out my blog.

Identification: Flowers

Flowers appear at the same time as the leaves, and are tumbling racemes of tiny yellow-green blossoms, each panicle from 5 – 20cm long.

Both sepals and petals are small and yellow-green, and the first flowers to appear are males, with 8 stamens.  Once fruits begin to form, the male flowers borne on the same panicle will bloom.  This avoid self-pollination.

They are a good source of pollen and nectar to visiting insects.

Identification: Fruit

The winged seeds of the Sycamore may well be the most instantly recognisable aspect of this tree.  They’re paired, but separate and spin as they fall, earning them the nickname of “helicopters”.

The angle between the two seeds is acute and narrow (Compared to other Acers) – this is relevant in distinguishing it from other maple species.

Identification: Bark

Bark of the Sycamore is grey-ish and cracked.  It matures to a pink-brown colour.

Similar Species

The Norway maple Acer platanoides and Field maple Acer campestre are also pretty common in Britain, but the species are easy enough to tell apart.

Norway maple is a smaller and thinner tree than the sycamore, with a maximum height of 27m.  It has paler, spikier leaves, and longer petioles.  Flowers are borne in upright racemes, and appear before the leaves.  The Norway maple fruit have a wider space between them than the Sycamore.

Field maple                   Norway maple                       Sycamore

Field maple is smaller than Sycamore, reaching 26m.  its leaves are smaller, and bluntly toothed, and have five lobes which are less deeply cut than Sycamore leaves.  Flowers are borne in erect clusters.  The winged fruit are very widely spaced, almost in a straight line.

Field maple                   Norway maple                       Sycamore

History

Sycamore was only introduced to the UK at the end of the 15thC, so would have been a novelty to King Henry VIII as he went hunting with his courtiers.

Because it can tolerate wind, it was often planted near houses and isolated farms.  There it would not only act as a wind break, but also cast a deep shadow that would keep the dairy cool in summer.

On a more sombre note, Sycamore were used for gallows in the West of Scotland, earning them the moniker “dool trees” (“grief trees).

A Sycamore planted nest to an Ash warned coachmen of a crossroads ahead.

Beneath a Sycamore tree in Dorset, the Tolpuddle Martyrs met in 1834.  They formed a society that would demand wages which didn’t leave them and their families starving, and were transported to Australia for their pains (but were pardoned and returned home 2 years later).  The tree still stands and is known as the Martyr’s Tree.

Uses

Sycamore wood is pale, easy to work, and resistant to warping.  It’s also fast growing, with trees being ready for felling at 60 years.

Furniture makers and wood turners use the wood, and it makes attractive rippled veneers.

It’s been used to make milk buckets as it didn’t flavour the milk.  Sycamore wood rollers in textile mills didn’t splinter, so the cloth remained without snags and undamaged.

It’s also been used for musical instruments, especially violins

Conclusion

Although it’s a relative new-comer to Britain, Sycamore trees are now widespread in many habitats.  It’s useful for timber, holds a place in history, and is pretty easy to identify.  And the winged seeds are always fun to fling into the air, and watch as they spiral neatly back down to earth.

References for this blog include the excellent “The Greenwood Trees” by Christina Hart-Davies , and the Reader’s Digest “The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain” (out of print but commonly available second-hand)

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The English oak Quercus robur truly is an iconic tree.  English Oak is also known as the Common oak, and the Pedunculate oak.  Across the fields of Britain, lone oaks stand in meadows, and form thick woodlands rustling with wildlife.  Oaks produce hard-wearing timber.  They are thoroughly bound up in religion, folklore, and mythology.

Identification: Tree shape

Oak trees are sturdy, and old trees can have a girth of up to 17m.  Their large branches grown from a short trunk, with a large crown.  Trees can grow to 37m tall.

Identification: Leaves

Oak leaves are very distinctive, with 3 to 5 pairs of unequal, blunt lobes.  They’re alternate, and have little or no stalk.  Either side of the leaf has four or five lobes.  At the base there are little flaps or “ears” which give a curved shape, known as auricles.  The underside of the leaf is hairless.

Identification: Flowers

Oak flowers are small and may well have evaded your attention.  They’re yellowish green and borne in catkins.  Male and female flowers are carried in different catkins.  Female ones are erect and have 2 to 4 flowers, which are flushed red.  These will be pollinated by the end of May and develop into acorns.  Male catkins droop and consist of more blooms.  Flowers are wind pollinated, hence their small size and lack of showy petals.

Identification: Fruit

Everyone can identify an acorn.  Most of us have pretended to be one when very small, growing into a large oak tree.  Acorns are actually nuts surrounded by a cup-like structure known as a cupule.

They’re 2 – 2.5cm long, and grown in clusters of 1 to 4.  English oak acorns are carried on long, stiff stalks.  In autumn, the acorns turn from a pale bright green to brown, and fall in their masses to the ground.

Sometimes, acorns are afflicted with Knopper gall.  This is caused by the tiny gall wasp Andricus quercuscalicis and cause the acorn to become twisted and distorted.

Identification: Bark

Bark starts out smooth and shiny. It becomes finely vertically fissured and cracked with age.

Similar species

There are several species of oak in the UK, but only the Sessile oak Quercus petraea shares the rounded lobes of English oak leaves.  It can be told apart from the English oak in various ways.

Sessile oak leaves have flat bases, lacking the auricles of the English oak.  Leaves have clear stalks, whereas the English oak leaves have almost none.   Sessile oak leaves have hairs on the midrib vein on the underside of the leaf.  They have 4 to 6 pairs of equal lobes.  English oak leaves are glabrous below, and lobes are uneven.  Sessile oak acorns have no stalk, and are shorter and fatter.  The acorn of the English oak has a long stalk.

Other species of oak have spikier leaves, or leaves with less distinct lobes.  These include the Scarlet oak Quercus coccinea, Red oak, Quercus borealis, and Pin oak Quercus palustris.  There’s also the  Lucombe oak Quercus x hispanica, Turkey oak Quercus cerris (with its’ furry acorn cups), and the Hungarian oak Quercus frainetto.

History: Building

Oak has long been used for building as it is extremely durable and strong.  Shingles, beams, and steeples across Britain are built with oak.  Salisbury cathedral boasts the tallest spire in England.  It is supported on a lattice work of 2641 tons of thirteenth century oak beams.

Oak was used for wheel spokes, ladder rungs, and shipbuilding.  Henry VIII’s warships were made from oak, much of it coppiced.  It took up to 3,000 mature oaks to build one ship.  Oak trees were grown into curves to supply “compass timber” for the bow and keel.  In fact, during the reign of Elizabeth I, laws were passed to promote the planting of oak and to limit its felling.

Curved timbers were also used in cruck frames, called for by house builders.  Half-timbered houses are built with oak frames.

The Three Tuns pub in Hay-on-wye

The high tannin content in oak bark has meant it’s been used for tanning leather for thousands of years.

History: Folklore

Vikings saw the oak as the tree of their god of thunder, Tor.  It has also been dedicated to other thunder gods; Jupiter, Zeus, and Thunor.  Oak is often struck by lightning which explains the connection.

Symbolising health and long life, bride grooms would carry acorns in their pockets.  Couples would get married under oaks until the church banned the practise.  Instead, married couples would race from the alter to the oak, and dance around it for luck.  Dreaming of oak suggested good health.  Christian preachers read and gave sermons under oaks.  King Charles II hid in the hollow oak at Boscabel house (in the village where I grew up), to escape the parliamentarians.

History: Food & Medicine

Acorns were ground into a flour to make bread before the cultivation of wheat, and were vital provisions for pigs which roamed free in the forests.

The bark of oak was made into a gargle for sore throats, ground acorns made a snuff to treat nosebleeds.  There are suggestions that oak leaves may have been used to treat diarrhea.

Oak apple galls were (and indeed still are) ground up to make a beautiful and permanent ink.

Uses

Oak is still used today for building, notably in oak panelling and furniture.  Its’ hard-wearing properties make it ideal for flooring, and oak veneers are popular.  Whisky barrels are still made of oak, and it’s a good choice for fence posts and firewood.

Threats

There are threats to the sturdy oak tree, alas.  They get cleared when hedgerows are grubbed up and habitat is lost to development.

They also are prone to Oak sudden death, or Ramorum dieback.  This is caused by the oomycete fungus Phytophthora ramorum.  The disease causes bleeding, dieback, and canker. Luckily for the English oak, this disease seems to cause more death in its’ American cousins.  Unfortunately for British forestry, it has spread to Japanese Larch where it is doing untold damage.

Oak are also susceptible to other diseases such as Acute Oak Decline (AOD).  This leaves dark cankers and causes crown thinning and death.  For more on AOD and other tree pathogens check out the Forestry Research site.

Conclusion

The English oak is such a glorious tree.  Nothing beats its gnarled shape, sentinel in a field or meadow.  Oak woods are an extraordinary habitat for animals ranging from insects to deer.  These deciduous woodlands create space for other wild flowers to grow and thrive.

Over the centuries, oak has been used in religion and spirituality, as medicine, for ink, barrels, house building, and warships.  Acorns have fed untold herds of pigs and provided bread.

This common British tree has been many things to us, and remains a glorious plant and an important iconic tree.

References for this blog include the excellent “The Greenwood Trees” by Christina Hart-Davies , and the Reader’s Digest “The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain” (out of print but commonly available second-hand) , and Collins Flower Guide by David Streeter.

The post Trees: English Oak appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Apologies for the grey background on some of the photos.  The final piece (at the end of a blog) shows a truer version of the colours.

Setting up

When you’re about to illustrate a subject that may take a while, like this Sycamore leaf (Acer pseudoplatanus), it’s important to make sure you have everything you need readily available.

Clear a (clean) space for yourself, if you’ve not got a dedicated table or studio.  Get a jar of fresh water.  Give your paint-box a cursory clean.  Have several specimens of the species you’re illustrating available.  Make sure all your equipment is right there; you don’t want to be having to go and find a tube of paint or a pencil in the middle of working, it could break your concentration.  Make a nice cup of tea.  Now you’re ready.

Equipment

I’m currently using Fluid 100 hotpress watercolour paper.  I draw with a mechanical pencil, a Pentel P205 0.5mm, direct onto the watercolour paper.  I like Winsor and Newton watercolours and use pans which I top up with paint from tubes. My trusty brush is always a Winsor and Newton series 7, number 1 size.

Leaf ready for paint

Decisions, decisions

Next, decide how you’ll tackle the subject.  This leaf is yellow with green and brown markings.  Should I paint each area of colour separately, or layer colours on top of one another?  Decide where your light source is (conventionally from the top left) and be sure you stick to this.  This is easy enough if you have a light and are painting from life!  Think about what colours you’ll be using to mix up the greens, yellows, and browns.  For this sketchbook study, I also need to decide how much of the leaf I’m planning on colouring.

I decide to lay down yellow first, then add top washes of greens and browns.  I’ll aim to colour approximately half of the leaf.

Base layer of Yellow

I mix a yellow that matches the yellows on the leaf.  This is Cadmium yellow light, plus a tiny bit of Yellow ochre, and a dab of Cadmium yellow dark.  I’m not brilliant and keeping track of which colour in my paint-box has which name, so apologies if this leads to confusion.

The consistency of the paint matters.  Too wet and there’s not enough colour, too dry and the paint doesn’t move right on the page.  Rather unpleasantly, I like to say aim for paint that’s similar to the thickness of blood.

Looking for darker areas, which mostly lie alongside the veins, plot in your darkest areas of yellow.  These can be hard to see and it’s worth extrapolating.  Use the areas of highest contrast on the leaf as a guide to where your shadows will lie.  If shadows fall below a vein and are darker to the left of a portion of leaf blade, then this may well be the pattern across that whole side of the leaf.

Paint in these areas across the leaf.  Be sure to concentrate the whole time and paint what you see rather than what you assume is there.

Softening the edges of the base layer

Once the yellow is dry, I dilute it into a lighter yellow with lots of clean water.  This makes the colour paler.  With watercolour, you always lighten colours by diluting them rather than muddying them by adding white.

Taking my brush I gently work around the edges of the yellow shapes.  This softens them.  It’s vital to leave plenty of white as the white of the page acts as your highlights.  Once you’ve covered an area of white paper with paint it’s impossible to lift that colour off, nor can you paint anything on top of it to get it good and white again.  Err on the side of caution, you can always make things darker at a later stage.

Adding a yellow background to the leaf

Once these layers are dry, we can add yellow to the surrounding spaces.  I speed up the drying process by using an electric fan heater, or a hair dryer.

A top layer of bright yellow is applied, over what I’ve just painted and most of the rest of the leaf.  This mix is not very watery, but not as thick as the initial yellow.  I apply it to the perimeters of the Sycamore leaf and the edges of the veins.  While it’s still wet I add water to the rest of the leaf and allow the yellow to bleed into these regions, albeit in a paler form.  Again, it’s vital to leave some areas of white and in fact ion this case it’s at this stage that I swallowed up too much of the white of the paper.

I also mix up a brown, Vandyke and Yellow ochre, and put some of this on the edges of the teeth of the leaf.  Again, I allow this to dry fully before going further.

Greens

This Sycamore leaf has big areas of green remaining, and I want to add these.  I repeat the steps I used to apply the yellow, looking all the time at my leaf to make certain I’m painting what I see rather than what I think might be there.  Adding areas of dark, and then softening them with a more dilute mix; I plot in the greens.  The paint mix in this case is Winsor and Newton Sap green, and yellow ochre, mixed with some Daniel Smith Spring green.  I always mix my greens, I’m yet to find a pre-mixed one which is close to the true colour of leaves.

Working into the Green areas

This leaf is proving a headache, and I hope that adding some darker areas to the green patches will help.  I mix a darker green, adding brown and a touch of purple to the mix.  Where the green touches the edges of the veins and the shadow is deepest, I pick out these darks.  It’s rather nerve-wracking as if you go too dark, the whole illustration is compromised.

Delineating the veins and leaf margins

To satisfy the eye, the edges of a leaf need to be crisp.  I use a yellowish brown for this, mixing Yellow ochre, Vandyke brown, and purple.  I pop the paint on the edges of the Sycamore leaf, then dilute it and pull a paler tint back into the leaf body.  This means there’s a gradation between the leaf and the edge, and it helps the illustration look more natural.

I also put some of this colour over the veins.  I am not delighted with the result, although I know I’m applying the right techniques.  Something extra that unifies the leaf is required.

A unifying Yellow top-wash

I go and have a cup of tea, and when I return I decide to whack a bright yellow wash over the whole thing.  It has to be said that this isn’t something I normally do, but I was feeling dissatisfied with the way the illustration was going.

I mix a medium consistency yellow colour, mostly Cadmium yellow.  Using quite a wet brush and working fast, I cover the entire leaf in this yellow.  Immediately it feels better, and is glowing a bit more.

I get a little carried away and mix up a tint of green and repeat the top wash.  It helps, but in doing this I lose more of those precious highlights.

Don’t overwork it!

I’ve reached a point where it’s ok.  If I go on adding layers over the entire leaf, then I’ll swallow up all my highlights and the entire illustration will become muddy and dull.

This is a tough decision, when to stop trying to redeem a painting.  If you get it wrong you end up with something you can’t fix.  Settling for something you know is decent is sometimes the best you can hope for.  I decide to wait for the paint to dry and to mix up browns for the leaf spots.

Leaf spots and detail

This is always the most fun, adding detail.  I mix up a dark brown, using lots of Cobalt blue and purple with a dark green and the Vandyke brown.  The paint is quite thick, and I make sure my brush has a sharp point as I’ll be picking out details.

Sycamore leaves often have these black spots, which are known as Tar Spots.  They don’t seem to do the tree any damage, and are a result of a parasitic fungal infection.  The pathogen is one Rhytisma acerinum

Illustrating these diseased areas requires the same level of concentration as painting the leaf itself.  They’re not the same colour throughout, and there are distinctive lines on some of the bark patches.  Not all the browned regions of the leaf are a result of Tar spot.  Some come from stress, and some are developing as autumn progresses.

I delineate the edges of the Tar spots with a sharp brush tip.  Once dry, I use a wet mix of a yellower brown, and allow the paint to dry and add its own edges to those I’ve illustrated.

With the tip of the brush I add the tiny speckles and spots that populate the leaf.

Final touches

I notice that there are tiny holes at the centre of some of these brown spots, and pick them out with Permanent White gouache.  This paint is also useful for covering up mistakes, and I use it quite thickly.

Finished!

The sketchbook illustration is done.  It’s not quite as good as I want it to be, but it’s serviceable

This leaf was illustrated as I painted it, on film, and I think that trying to paint and explain myself at the same time inevitably has some effect on my work.  However, as a sketchbook study of a Sycamore leaf on the turn, it’s good enough.  It’s one detail of a sheet of information on the Sycamore I’m completing for FOR Sweden, who have commissioned another batch of invasive species studies.  For more of my Sketchbook illustrations, check out my online gallery, or see which of the originals are available to buy.

If you’d like to see the film (be warned, it’s an hour long!) feel free to take a look:

There’s also an accompanying blog which discusses how I drew up the leaf  This too has a film of the process.

The post Botanical Illustration of a Sycamore Leaf appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

In the summer, I completed more than a hundred pen and ink illustrations of trees for “The Living Wisdom of Trees” by Fred Hageneder.

The commission involved illustrating 54 species of fully grown tree, along with details such as blossom, leaves, or fruit.  Illustrating the botanical details was straight forward (here’s a separate blog on this), but as for the trees themselves…

Challenges

Now I love working in pen and ink, but this job presented me with a new challenge.  How to represent something as big as a tree in this exacting and detailed medium?  For more on enormous trees, take a look at the Tree Triage website which talks about the largest trees in the USA.  It gives some idea of the problems of scale I was up against!

Giant Redwood Sequoia sempevirnes

I’ve always struggled with trees; I find capturing their bulk as well as the depths of shadow in their foliage tricky.  My illustrations often look flat, and getting the lights and darks balanced in a way that makes the tree look three dimensional has occupied me for years.  I take inspiration from sources like Rembrandt’s etchings, and engravings from old natural history books.

Rembrandt, The Three Trees (1643) Etching with drypoint and burin on paper

Another challenge was the need to make each tree look species-specific, a type specimen.  Part of the challenge here is knowing how each tree “feels”; easy enough for native species, but much tougher for species which are new to me, like the Peepal and Kuari.

Luckily, Google images presents a plethora of sources to refer to, including some invaluable links to global arboretums and university arboriculture courses.

I had a lot of fun driving around Herefordshire looking for the perfect “type” specimen of willows, oaks, limes, ashes and innumerable other UK species.  I’d take photos, sketches, and written notes to work from.  I also have my sketchbooks to work from, an invaluable resource.

However, the need to make the pen and ink illustrations of trees look significantly different from one another remains.  This became more pronounced with species which are alphabetically proximate in the book!

Kauri Agathis australis

Pencil Roughs

The first step is always to produce pencil line drawing roughs.  These get sent to the publisher (Watkins) where the art director considers them and asks for changes.  In most cases the trees were approved with no changes required.

Cedar of Lebanon Cedrus libani pencil rough

Blackthorn Prunus spinosa pencil rough

With some, they needed altering.  Again, you return to your source material and exaggerate the characteristics that make that species distinct.  I found this quite difficult, but I like a good challenge.  I think about 15 trees needing tweaking.  All the altered trees were approved.

You can see with the pear tree below that the second rough (on the right) has been made far more lop-sided and bends more.  Branches have been thinned.  The tree trunk is elongate and thinner than before.  The foliage has been made less dense.  I kept a note of all the changes I made on an Excel spreadsheet that I submitted with my revisions; if I’d not done so I would have forgotten the details that were tweaked.

Pear tree roughs Pyrus domestica

Pen and Ink illustration of trees finals

Once approved, I began the task of getting the illustrations inked in.  This requires building up tonality with lots and lots of tiny marks.  These need to echo the shape of the leaves, but obviously you need to avoid trying to illustrate each individual leaf.  With conifers this is easy – a lot of straight lines show pine needles admirable.

Yew tree Taxus baccata

With the deciduous species it’s tougher.  Make the marks too big and the whole picture looks blunt.  Make them too small and you end up taking days on one lone tree.  Below is the Laurel, one of the illustrations that has that “blunt” feeling.  There are about four more trees that I feel are too blunt, but I’m not going to tell you which ones they are!

Laurel Prunus laurocerasus

There was also a nasty moment when I came to rub out my initial pencil lines.  When I removed them, I also removed a whole lot of shadow and depth!  It didn’t take long for me to realise I could erase the perimeter pencil lines and leave the pencil marks on the rest of the illustration.  This kept the illustrations more nuanced.

Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa

I love the way the bark of the Sweet chestnut spirals, it’s a dead give away for identifying this species even in the depths of winter.

In some cases I left some pencil lines on the trunk too, as with the Hawthorn.

Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna

Working in Pen and Ink

The actual act of working in pen and ink is straight forward.  I bought up tons of disposable permanent ink pens, in this case Unipin fine liners.  A variety of widths means you can vary the weight of the line.  Tree trunks and branch outlines were done with an 0.2mm, leaves and externals shapes and detail required an 0.1mm nib, while the fine stippling detail and cross hatching was done with a very fine 0.05mm pen.

Stippling an elm

Initially I only used tiny marks to build up darks; but pretty soon I realised I needed more texture and depth.  I added cross hatching, lots of tiny squiggly lines, scribbling; anything to build into those darkest shadows and make them feel leafy.

Detail of ink marks on London Plane Plantanus x hispanica

I also clocked that adding more detailed leaf shapes to the perimeter of the tree helped suggest these leaf shapes would continue into the bulk of the foliage.  For trees like the Holly this was particularly important.  You can see some residual pencil marks in the detail of the holly tree.

Holly Ilex aquifolium

Holly Ilex aquifolium detail

The tree trunks were easier, and I used a lot more stippling to give them the required texture and curvature.

Detail of tree trunk of Cherry Prunus avium

Again, the conifers were simple.  Lots of tiny straight lines built up texture, shape, and tone.

Detail of Larch Larix decidua

Physical challenges

Deadlines are ever present, and although Watkins had given me plenty of time to work up the finals, summer holiday and associated child care approached.  This meant I had to work long hours.  I’d estimated each tree would take 2 hours to complete.  This turned out to be more like 5 or 6 hours per tree, with the knock on effect on my time frame.

Apple Malus domestica

I like working long into the night, there’s something snug and cosy about being alone with the radio in my studio at 2am.

No, the problem wasn’t working late.  It was my hand!

I guess the minute repeated action of millions of dots and weeny lines takes its toll; by the end of each day my hand would ache like anything, which made it hard to go on drawing.  I did though, and eventually completed the tree illustrations.  Over summer, despite not lifting a pencil, my hand continued to ache on and off for three weeks.  A troubling event for a free-lance illustrator! (It’s better now).

Favourites

Overall I was pleased with my pen and ink illustrations of trees.  There are a couple of “blunt” ones, but the majority work well.

Particular favourites are the Baobab, Olive and Scots Pine.  I liked the Orange too, even though it had required a full re-draw at rough stage.

Baobab Adansonia grandidieri

Olive Olea europaea

Scots pine Pinus sylvestris

Orange Citrus sinensis

Although this job presented challenges, I ended up really enjoying it, and learning a great deal more about trees.  However, next time someone asks for a book’s worth of fully tonal pen and ink illustrations, I may well have pause for thought!

If you’d like to see a film of snippets of me stippling and working on this job in real time, please take a look at the film below.

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