I was lucky enough to be asked to do the illustrations.  Not only am I really excited to be associated with this timely and fascinating book, but the fact that Ben is a local author is also very pleasing.

Cover of The Treeline by Ben Rawlence

The Treeline: Species list

Trees tough enough to survive in such northerly climates are not too numerous.  This means the number of species needing illustrating is limited.  Each species needs a picture of the tree itself, and an assortment of its leaves, cones, flower, and fruit.

Some are familiar, and feel like old friends.  I’m thinking of the Rowan Sorbus aucuparia, Scots pine Pinus sylvestris, Hazel Corylus avellana and Juniper Juniperus communis.  I was able to re-use some of the illustrations completed for The Living Wisdom of Trees by Fred Hageneder, thanks to an arrangement made with its publisher.

Scots pine Pinus sylvestris

In total, there are 16 species which appear in the northern boreal forests (and in the book!)  The fact that I was surprised to find some growing so far north reflects holes in my botanical knowledge.  I didn’t expect to see Aspen Populus tremuloides, Balsam poplar Populus balsamifera, Alder Alnus glutinosa, or Crack willow Salix fragilis on the list.

Being asked to do the illustrations

Unusually, Ben approached me himself.  Normally commissioning of artwork for books is done through an art editor.  I know Ben slightly as my other half has made a wonderful desk for him in the past.  So when Ben got in touch to ask if I’d be interested in illustrating his books as I was “the only illustrator he knows”, I jumped at the chance.  How fortunate that the only illustrator he knows also happens to have illustrated several books on trees!  It was meant to be.  It was good to have Ben as my commissioner as he knew exactly what features to emphasize in the illustrations.

Inking up the pencil rough of Downy birch Betula pubescens

The Treeline: Tough trees in difficult conditions

Many of the trees growing at this northern limit of the boreal forests are small and stunted by the cold.  This condition occurs across species, and is know as Krummhloz. Trees can only grow close to the ground, or beneath snow.  This is cause the arctic winds above are so damaging.  Resulting trees are often thick at a lower level.  Emergent branches and trunks are spindly, sparse, and thin.

I try to include aspects of this in the illustrations, but make sure the trees still look species specific.  In reality, the sprawling lower vegetation is more pronounced.  Perhaps I err on the side of drawing more species-typical specimens.

Black Spruce Picea marinara tree

Comparisons

Some of the trees need to be compared so that the subtle differences between species can be clarified.  This is tricky.  You’re trying to work with reference of trees from this particular habitat, often with Krummholz.  Details have to be botanically correct.  The Black and White spruce are particularly difficult to untangle, not least cause sometimes the image reference online is attributed to the wrong species!

White spruce Picea glauca

The cones are very different, but differences between female flowers in these two are hard to pinpoint.  Luckily, the male flowers are simpler.  White spruce ones grow erect, but they’re pendulous in Black spruce.

Black spruce Picea mariana

The Treeline: Drawing conifers vs Deciduous trees

Drawing a deciduous tree is harder than drawing a conifer.  With Pine and Spruce and Larch, you represent the needles with lots of tiny ink lines.  The tonality is easy to work into, and the textures flow readily from the pen.

Siberian larch Larix sibirica

Deciduous trees are more nebulous.  Shadows cast by elliptical or lobed leaves are less predictable, and giving the impression of depth and thickness of vegetation is far harder.  It’s easy to make the edges of the foliage too crisp, or to fail to balance internal shadows.

Downy Birch Betula pubescens

However, when it comes to leaves, fruit, and flowers the situation is reversed.  Give me a catkin over a larch strobilus any day!

Dahurian larch Larix gmelinii strobilus and male flowers

The learning curve with the conifers is a steep one.  I understand the anatomy of cones, but for this job I had to learn about strobilus and the different male and female flowering structures of conifers.  “You should know this already!” I hear you cry, “having illustrated lots of Pine and Spruce trees before!”  And you’re right.  But I don’t.

Downy birch Betula pubescens fruiting catkins

For more on the Downy birch, check out my  blog and youtube film showing me inking up the catkins and leaves in real time and discussing my processes.

The Treeline: Layout

Ben and the team want the details of each tree to sit together neatly on the page.  I provided them with all the different elements separately, and in one layout.  As it turns out (and as expected) the design team alter my layouts, but this is fine with me. The laying out  is actually quite fun.  I love how much smarter the illustrations look when surrounded by a border, and annotated.  Even though my layouts weren’t used in the book, I know it’s given suggestions to the designers that may prove useful.

Dahurian larch Larix gmelinii cones

And here are the same cones along with the other accompanying illustrations

Dahurian larch Larix gmelinii details

Conclusion

I haven’t been able to read the book yet, but can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.  There are a lot of books coming out which focus on the environment, and how climate change and man are altering the natural balance.  Although it can feel depressing, I truly believe these messages need to get out there.  The variety of habitats which are being changed is as diverse as life itself, and I’m keen to know more about the northern edge of the arboreal forest, and the dangers the climate emergency are causing.  This extraordinary forest even appeared on David Attenborough’s latest series, “The Green Planet” in the “Seasonal |World’s” episode, and seeing film of the snow covered trees was wonderful, and strangely moving.  Here’s rather a good review from The Guardian newspaper.

Larch Larix decidua or europea

Illustrating A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough, and another upcoming title on the importance and fragility of life on earth (“The Hidden Universe” by director of Kew Gardens Alexandre Antonelli); I feel like I’m somehow involved in a small way in getting these messages out to the public.  And that matters to me.  It makes me proud to be associated with important and timely books like The Treeline by Ben Rawlence.

Here’s the film about illustrating the catkins and leaves of the Downy Birch:

The post The Treeline – Book Illustrations appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Rowan Sorbus aucuparia is a small tree, but one which gives an enormous amount.  Prodigious blossom in spring, vibrant orange berries in autumn, and a whole to offer in terms of history and folklore.  And you can make jam from its berries!

Not only does the Rowan provide all this, but it can also grow in really tough environments.  It’s not called the Mountain Ash for nothing, and you frequently see lone Rowan trees clinging onto rocky outcrops in upland and heathland habitats.

Rowan berries and illustration

Identification: Tree shape

Rowan is a small and slender tree.  It normally grows to 10 – 15m tall, and can live to 200 years old.  Rowan grows swiftly, and is found up to 2000m in the Alps – it can tolerate the cold.

It can grow in really unusual places.  I’ve seen Rowan trees growing perched on top of boulders.  They grow on the sides of streams, from crevices in cliff faces, and much further north than many other deciduous trees.  Rowan even help make up the Boreal forest, which creeps to the edge of the Arctic.

Despite their seeming predilection for odd places to grow, these sites tend to dovetail with places where large grazing herbivores can’t browse.

Rowan tree in blossom

Although this blog is about the common Rowan, there are 44 species and 8 hybrids of this tree in the UK.  Many can be found in the Avon gorge, in Bristol.  In fact, this habitat has the greatest diversity of Rowan species in the whole of Europe, and many are very rare indeed.

Because of the blossom and attractive berries, Mountain ash is often found in gardens, as well as across the countryside.

Identification: Leaves

Rowan leaves are compound and up to 20cm long.  This means that each leaf is made of lots of smaller leaflets.  Each rowan leaflet is oblong, and has sharply toothed margins (for more on leaf margins see my blog).  There will be a lone leaflet at the tip of each compound leaf; all the others are paired and opposite one another.  There are 5-7 pairs per leaf.

Sketchbook page of Rowan

Leaves are a dull green on top, and many be slightly pubescent below, especially when young.

Identification: Flowers

In spring Rowan is awash with frothy white flowers that are strongly scented.  The whole tree buzzes with the bees and flies, amassed around the blossom.

Each flower is 8 – 10 mm across, and has 5 creamy rounded petals.  Rowan is a member of the Rosaceae family, so you may notice a family similarity in shape to apple, pear and plum blossoms (although each flower of the Rowan is much smaller).

Rowan flowers have male and female structures, and are hermaphrodite.  There are 3 – 4 styles, and lots of prominent stamens bearing cream coloured pollen.

The blossoms are borne in domed clusters 8 – 15cm across.  From a distance these look like a froth of cream flowers.  There can be up to 250 flowers per flowering head (or corymb).

Detail of Rowan blossom

As well as bees and flies, Rowan blossom is an important source of nectar for hoverflies and beetles.

Identification: Fruit

Autumn sees the tree produce vibrant orange berries which glow against a deep blue sky.  they can also be used for jams, and are important for wildlife.

Late autumn, and the leaves turn gold and brown, contrasting with the remaining berries.

Each berry is oval or round, and up to 8mm across.  You sometimes see inconspicuous lenticels on the berries.  There are up to 8 seeds inside each berry, although 2 is the norm.  Trees begin to produce seeds from about 15 years old.

Rowan berries

The berries can vary in colour from yellowish to a vibrant red, but a rich orange is the most common colour.  They’re shiny.

They’re very rich in vitamin C, in the form of ascorbic acid, and provide a vital food supply for birds and occasional mammals.

Pen and ink illustration of Rowan berries

Berries need the cold to break down their tough outer coats, and cannot germinate unless they’ve been exposed to cold temperatures.

In mild climates, berries are produced every year.  Where the weather is colder and harsher, Rowan trees will mast.  This means that every few years all the trees will produce a glut of berries.  In between mast years, very few berries are produced.

Identification: Bark

Bark of the Rowan tree is smooth and a slightly greenish grey, with dark lenticels scatted across it.  It looks silver in certain lights.

Twigs are often slightly hairy, especially when they’re young when they feel downy to the touch.  This wears off, and older twigs are slightly shiny and glabrous.

In winter, Rowan twigs are easy to recognize.  The buds are purplish-brown, pointed, and downy.

Similar species

The orange berries and blossom are unlikely to be confused with other tree species.  However, both the Ash and the Elder also have compound leaves.  The leaflets of these trees tend to be less crisply toothed than Rowan, and the shape of each leaflet is a little blunter.  I’ve written blogs on the Ash and hope to write one on Elder, do take a look.

Ash leaf – note that the teeth are less sharp and each leaflet is rounder than the Rowan

History: Folklore

The bright berries of Rowan mean it has a rich history of folklore.  This colour was thought to be highly effective at fighting off witches, so Rowan trees were planted near houses.

In Celtic mythology, Rowan is considered the tree of protection.  Runes were carved into the living trees (which may well explain the name “Rowan” as both words share the same root) , and stone circles with Rowans planted nearby were thought to be the site of fairy activity.

Rowan Berry, leaves and blossom

Twigs or Rowan were used to stir milk in the diary, in the hope that it would prevent the milk from curdling.  In the barns, Rowan crosses would hang above livestock to provide some protection from disease and witchcraft.  Amulets and wands were made from Rowan, and those who practice divining believe that Rowan is particularly good at finding water.  It was common to carry a sliver of Rowan in your pocket for protection from enchantment, and sailors believed a boat with rowan wood on board could not capsize or harbour anyone who would drown.

Because you can make out a five sided shape if you cut a rowan berry in half, they were thought to be magical and have protective powers.  This is the pentagram symbol, or “eleven cross”.

In Wales, Rowan were often planted in churchyards, and in Scotland is was anathema to fell a Rowan tree.

Illustrating Rowan berries

Druids thought Rowan acted like a gateway to another place (one assumes somewhere more spiritual than merely the next town up the valley) and would drink wine made from Rowan berries to get second sight.  Or drunk.

History: Food & Medicine

Rowan berries are edible, but not particularly pleasant unless processed.  They’re commonly made into wines, jellies, and jams.

If food was sparse, rowan berries could be dried and ground into a flour which could be baked into a rudimentary loaf of bread.

Medicinally, Rowan has had many uses.  It’s a cure for digestive complaints.  It can be made into a poultice to treat ulcers.  As a gargle, it can take on sore throats and tonsils.  The high vitamin C content meant it was a splendid antidote to scurvy.  It was used to treat sores, and to stop bleeding.

This is no surprise, Rowan in very rich in antioxidants which are used in modern medicine to treat everything that needs a boost to the immune system.

Uses

As well as all the protective, spiritual and medical properties, Rowan had and has practical uses too.

Its wood makes excellent handles for tools and utensil, and has a fine-grain.  Henry VIII reckoned the Rowan made such good bows that he passed a law prohibiting people from using the wood for any other purpose.

The wood can also be used for wood turning and engraving blocks.

The whole tree is rich in acid and is highly astringent.  This made it perfect for tanning leather.

The bark can be made into a black dye.

These days, a derivative from the Sorbic acid found in Rowan has been made into a food preservative which can eradicate nasty bacillus such as Clostridium botulinum.  This bacteria can produce toxins that can cause botulism if ingested.  These toxins are, according to the NHS website “some of the most powerful toxins known to science. They attack the nervous system (nerves, brain and spinal cord) and cause paralysis (muscle weakness)…if left untreated it [Botulism] can be fatal in 5 – 10% of cases”

Bohemian Waxwing Bombycilla garrulus on Rowan

The berries are wonderful for wildlife, with members of the Thrush family particularly fond of them.  Redwing, Thrush, Blackbirds and Fieldfare all feast and help disperse the seeds.  Dormice, foxes and pine marten also eat the berries

The leaves are eaten by caterpillars of the Welsh wave moth and Autumn green carpet.  Apple fruit moth feast on the berries. Other moth caterpillars will feast inside the leaves, as leaf miners.  Mountain hare eat young leaves; and red deer graze on the tree foliage, stems and tree trunks.

Threats

Rowan trees, like all UK species, suffer as a result of habitat loss.  However, there is no immediate horrible threat, such as Ash die-back, knocking at the door of this beautiful tree.

They can suffer from fire-blight, European mountain ash ringspot-associated virus, and silver leaf disease.

The main threat to the Mountain ash is browsing from red deer and other large herbivores.

Rowan illustration in “Trees and How to Grow them”

Conclusion

Rowan, or the Mountain ash, is a common tree in the UK.  The blossom and berries make it decorative and easy to identify.  It’s uses stretch into myth, food, herbalism, agriculture, and legend. It’s an extremely important tree, not only in terms of wildlife and ecology; but equally for the role it’s played in human history and folklore.

Luckily, this is one of our trees which isn’t likely to be going anywhere soon.  When I look at the blackbirds glutting themselves of the rowan berries in my garden, I’d very glad to know that.

Online sources for this blog include websites of The Woodland Trust, Trees for life, the Green Parent, and Naturespot.  Book 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).

There’s also a film of me illustrating rowan berries in real time, take a look if you fancy it:

The post Trees: Rowan appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

I have a Rowan, or Mountain ash tree in my garden.  Not only do the clusters of blazing orange berries look stunning long into autumn, but they provide a vital food supply for the garden birds.  They also give me something colourful to illustrate in the depths of winter.

Drawing the Rowan berry

First, draw a cluster of berries.  I use a Pentel P205 mechanical pencil, H lead.  This is because it never needs you to break from drawing to sharpen it, just snap the lead to a crisp edge by pushing against the page.

Keep the drawing simple.  No lights or darks, just a simple and accurate representation of the shapes of your clutch of rowan berries.

Beneath this study, I also draw one single berry.  I’ll be focused on this lone rowan berry, then using the approach used on the single fruit to add colour to all the berries in the drawing.

Mixing your dark oranges

Unconventionally, I start by plotting in areas of dark.  This helps me understand the shape of what I’m painting.  Lots of people using watercolour start very light and take their paintings gradually darker and darker; it’s an approach which works well.  However, I’ve always painted this way and even thought I’ve tried to change my ways, it’s easier for me to start out with those shadows.

The colour I mixed is cadmium orange light mixed with a little crimson.  This adds a darker red kick to the orange of the berry.  I look for distinct shapes in the darker areas, and plot them in.

It’s vital to leave lots of white.  Not only will these spaces provide you with highlights and shine, but you’ll be using them to work into gradations of colour between the dark orange and the shining white highlights.  Give yourself space to manoevre!

Look out for shine on the bulk of the berry, but also on the bottom of the curve.  Adding this light area helps describe the spherical shape.

Between all these steps, be sure you leave time for the paint to dry fully, or your layers of shade will all merge into one atonal muddy mess.

I always use a Winsor and Newton Series 7 paintbrush (in this case a number 1).  Winsor and Newton watercolour pans fill my paintbox, (although I’m currently experimenting with Daniel Smith watercolour trial dot cards too.)

Plotting in the mid tones

Next, you need to work into the bulk of the berry.  You need to keep the highlights white, but show a gentle change between the shadows and these light regions.  Mix a lighter orange.  I used cadmium orange light with less red added.  Lay this on top of the painted area, and overlap the edges a little, into the white zone.

I also dilute the mix with water as I move into the paler regions of the berry.  This is why the orange looks a little yellower there.

Repeat the action, but this time with a paler hue.  I mix some cadmium yellow light in with cadmium orange, and add some water to keep it bright and light.

Unfortunately the photo is a little out of focus, but I hope you can see how using the paint in an ever more dilute mix gives the suggestion of the colour brightening toward the highlights.

Always keep looking at the berry you’re illustrating.  You’ll only get the tonality right by referring to it endlessly.

Working into your darks and finishing your lights

The final step with the highlights is to unite the colour of the berry without swallowing the highlights.  A very dilute yellow provides the perfect colour.  Apply it over the entire berry, except for your most startling highlights.  If you look at the bottom curve of the rowan berry below, you cn see that the white has been entirely covered with the yellow wash.  It still provides visual information that tells us the berry is round, but it no longer pulls the eye from the highlight at the centre of the rowan berry.

Now you’ve sorted out the shine, you can look at the darks and shadows again.  I always come back to these areas and take them a couple fo steps deeper and darker.  In this case I mix up a deep crimson from cadmium orange dark, alizarin crimson, and a touch of purple.

Be careful adding these super-darks.  You don’t want them to swallow the whole rowan berry, just to add a bit of a “pop”.

You can see that the darks have been added at the very bottom of the fruit, and a touch in the dark area on the right, below the shine.  Another touch goes below the stalk and a final bit just on the left hand curve.

Colours used

Here is a colour swatch of the mixes I used.  The top purplish crimson was the final darkest darks.  Next colour down was the first painting I did, the initial plotting of shadows and shapes.  The second, paler orange was used for the midtones.  The bright yellow was applied across the whole berry, except for the brightest highlights.  In lighter areas it was diluted with lots of water.

For a step by step on painting blackberries, sloes, and hawthorn berries, please follow the links. For all my botanical illustration step by step blogs click here, and for a whole gallery of my sketchbook studies, please click here.

Applying this technique to the whole cluster of berries

Now you’ve figured out your approach and palette, you can apply it across the whole sketchbook study.

You also need to think about how the proximity of berries and leaves interplay.  One berry will cast a shadow onto the rowan berry below it.  A leaf may cast a shadow over the whole lot.  Keep looking at your specimen as you untangle this interplay of dark and light.

And here’s the finished study:

I used this as a base for a teaching session, and filmed some of it in real time (see below).  If you’d like a simplified version of this blog, as a printable A4 sheet, please check out my Pinterest post.

I hope this explanation of how you can use a study of one lone rowan berry as a starting point for a seemingly complicated sketch might be helpful.  As with everything to do with drawing and painting, it all boils down to looking, and taking things slowly, step by step.

The post Step by Step Rowan berry appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Drawing the Waxwing

First step is always to draw up the bird.  I wanted to include background, and hoped scarlet and orange berries would echo the reddish areas in the bird’s plumage.  I use a Pentel P205 mechanical pencil, and draw straight onto my hot press fabriano artistico watercolour paper.

Then I open my watercolour box, predominantly full of Winsor & Newton pans; and get out my trusty Winsor and Newton series 7 paintbrush (sizes 2 and 00).

Pencil rough of the waxwing

I paint by building up a layer of hundreds of tiny little strokes, blending the colour by layering slightly different colours of paint.  As you can see, the point on my brush is exquisite (that’s series 7 brushes for you) so there are no blunt lines or blobs of colour.

Mixing the waxwing pink colour

The pinkish hue of the waxwing head and body proved a real challenge to mix.  I could see it had pinks and ochres in, and was slightly blueish.  However, there was a solidity, a pastel-like thickness to the colour that I could only achieve by mixing in some white gouache.  I normally avoid mixing with white as it makes the paint chalky and heavy, but in this case it achieved exactly the effect I was after.

Paler areas are left white, so they can glow.  I start plotting in the darks with some trepidation, and it’s always worth remembering it’s far easier to make watercolour darker than to lighten it.

I’ve added more yellow ochre to the head and body, which helps clarify the lights and darks, and adds a bit of richness to the plumage.

Painting the darker areas of the bird

Working closely from my photo reference (oh for a dead waxwing, or a waxwing skin to work from!) I plot in the crisp and dark feathers.  I use endless tiny strokes to build colour and texture.  All the brighter parts of the wing are left white.   The red areas need be unified, so  I will do them all at the same time, with the same paint colour.

It’s worth saying that I’m a stickler for blacks which feel properly dark and velvety.  I don’t feel pre-mixed ones do this.  Adding prussian blue or purple bulks up a black, and makes it a more interesting colour, too.

I tend to finish one area before starting on the next.  I know many watercolourists work on the whole illustration at once, pulling the entire piece together by degrees.  I favour a jig-saw approach.   Bit by bit I add colour and detail.

Looking at details of the waxwing

Above is a detail of the head of the bird.  I include this so you can see how simple the whole process is.  It really is just optical mixing of loads of tiny lines of colour.  Getting gradations between colour works well using this technique, so I use precisely the same approach for the fur of mammals and colour on flowers.

Similarly, on the wing you can see how the individual brush strokes try to echo the filaments of each feather, which helps give the bird texture.  I try to draw as I apply the paint, and tweak the pencil sketch as I go.

Here the bird is nearly done.  Areas still needing to be addressed include the legs, and the red areas.  These are on the rump, head, mandible and wing.  I  left these until I’d finished the colour on the berries, the bird must echo these bright colours.  It makes the viewer’s eyes travel across the whole picture, not just settle on the cluster of fruit.

The story of a painting: look at the paintbox

A photo of my watercolour box shows how beaten-up and well-used it is.   But also you can see how colour mixing happens in each area.  On the far right there’s all the oranges to go on the feathers.  These were mixed in the space used for the berries.

The middle areas are warm greys (the bird scapulars or shoulders) and darker greys which have been used to add definition to the edge of the wing and tail feathers.  The mixing zone on the far left is bright yellows; these are the flashes of gold seen on the wing primaries.

I quite like the way a paintbox tells the story of what you last painted.

Finishing the Waxwing illustration

And below is the final piece.

Not only have the areas of red been added, but shadows have been put in.  I was in two minds about the drop shadow below the wing; I’m glad I added it.   It gives the picture a little more movement.

For some weird reason, the last thing I paint is always the eye.  I suppose I don’t like being stared at as I paint!  Although the eyes are always fun to do, I’m painfully aware that if I make a mistake the entire painting will be ruined.  Painting the perfect curve of pure, solid black for the pupil, and leaving the plain white paper for the highlight is always terrifying.

I’m quite pleased with this one.  It’s an amazing looking animal, sowas a treat to paint.

This lovely bit of film by Tommy Hyndman shows waxwings up close.

The post Illustration: Step by step Waxwing appeared first on Lizzie Harper.