Drawing: Trees

Draw or Paint, step-by-step

by William F. Powell

In this book, William F. Powell invites you into his artistic world as he shows you how to render a variety of beautiful trees in pencil. The author explains a number of basic drawing techniques before exploring basic tree shapes and leaf types. As you learn how to draw branches, bark, and ground foliage, step by step, you'll also discover important tips about shading, creating textures, setting up compositions, and applying perspective, helping you develop your own tree drawings to their fullest potential. Helpful examples and essential information make this comprehensive guide a valuable addition to any artist's drawing library!

Genres: Art, Drawing, Nonfiction

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

William F. Powell is an internationally recognized artist recognized as one of America's foremost colorists. He has written and illustrated more than 30 instructional art books.

Reviews

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent guide for drawing trees of all types, with quite detailed instructions and lots of helpful tips. The author also includes illustrations of some leaves and talks about topics like shadows, shading, foliage, root patterns and more. Some basic drawing skills will be helpful but this gives you a great idea on how to draw all kinds of trees, from oaks to palm trees, and the other elements that may be in the picture with them.

My rating system:
1 = hated it
2 = it was okay
3 = liked it
4 = really liked it
5 = love it, plan to purchase, and/or would buy it again if it was lost

I read a temporary digital ARC of the book for the purpose of review.

[Jenny Houle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intermediate level how to book. Appropriately topic specific (pretty clear from the title that you’ll be learning to draw trees). I love how this entire line of books has an in-depth explanation of materials, etc., making them all great reference guides for beginners with any interests. Basically, it gives someone a chance to grow their skill set nicely.

Powell is great at the breakdown of nature drawings, which is not always easy to do (many of us struggle when we try to recreate living yet relatively inanimate objects like trees, flowers, etc). Definitely would buy for someone interested in starting drawing or for someone still at an intermediate level.

[Jason Muckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Drawing: Trees" by William F. Powell is an informative, educational step-by-step guide to drawing all kinds of trees of every type and size. Starting at the basics with the tools and basic drawing techniques like shading, Powell takes the artist from the simplest, most basic concepts of drawing, like creating the surface and texture to value, which is the relative lightness or darkness.

Powell also covers nuances such as perspective and composition and the basic shape of the trees you are sketching. He then moves on to tree trunks, branches and foliage. As you go further, it is somewhat surprising all the unique features of drawing a tree there are that you may not have seen or realized before attempting to sketch one.

With all the unique shapes and features of the varied species of trees, Powell does a wonderful job of breaking down each part of the tree and each type of tree to simpler bits that can be tackled little by little. There is so much content here, you could spend a good deal of time working through the many examples and growing steadily in your mastery of drawing trees.

Powell is a master artist with decades of experience drawing and coloring in a host of different formats. He lends his exquisite talents to the beginning artist in a way that is accessible and beneficial for any student of art no matter their former training. It is a great volume to have in your art library to refer to over and over. I loved this book!

I received this eBook free of charge from Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. I did not receive any fiscal compensation from either company for this review and the opinions expressed herein are entirely my own.

[Tracy Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love trees, through all the seasons, the way complex root systems can be woven up onto ground level to compete for attention with the majestic swaying of brightly coloured spring leaves or buds promising blossom to come in summer and forward to autumn and winter where only the branches remain. Now thanks to this book I can try my hand at drawing them too; I can't wait.

This is a short book but I don't have a problem with that because everything I wanted was covered. The chapters covers different parts of the tree and I liked that the pages covering what equipment was needed also had hand drawn pictures.

I was able to read a copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an unbiased review and would recommend it to anyone wanting to draw trees for relaxation.

[Ulee ☄︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe the author expects you to have some understanding of basic drawing concepts because some of the drawings have only 3 steps. He describes why certain trees look the way they do and certain things to look out for when drawing them. He also provides what type of pencil to use to makes your drawings have little or dramatic effects.

[CybercrrEDU · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a newer copy of this. I rated it four stars because the newer copy is well, huge. The book is huge. It is kind of clunky and does not fit into my shelf well. Anyway aside from that it's an instructional book on drawing trees with some cool techniques for graphite, but you can sort of adapt them to ink, or colored pencils too if you monochromatically working. What I do like it that it gives you a foundation to work from. This is a highly recommended book for beginners. Although I've been at it for decades in art, I still bought this book because I'm experimenting with differ styles or topics in art. So if you're looking to change things up this is also good for any level artist, even as a visual inspirational resource.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short but concise

Short book with instructions on how to draw trees. It's focused only on one technique but could be a very useful tool to recolets lost skill or learn something new without overwhelming your self with too much information.

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Instructional book for beginners. Easy and fun practice.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Drawing: Trees with William F. Powell is a tutorial art guide aimed at advanced beginners or intermediate artists for drawing trees alone and in landscape. Released 7th May 2019 by Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint, it's 40 pages and available in ebook and paperback formats.

A short general introduction (10%) covers tools and materials including pencils, paper, blending tools, etc. The intro is followed by a group of non-specific tutorials on graphite techniques, shading, light, shapes, tonal values, texture, and perspective. The following tutorial chapters are specific for different parts of trees, such as general shapes, foliage, root and growth patterns, etc. The tutorials move on with full species specific studies.

It's worth noting that the ebook version of the eARC includes a very handy interactive table of contents. I really liked that. Each of the tutorials include 4-6 steps start to finish.

I like these tutorial booklets, they're inexpensive and full of useful info for artists looking for improvement in their own work. Whilst not a beginner specific book, there are lessons to be had here for artists of all levels.

Five stars - for what it covers and for a very short tutorial guide, it does the job admirably well.

Disclosure: I received an early eARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Drawing: Trees" is a short art book providing tips on how to draw trees with graphite pencils. The author spent a few pages discussing tools, materials, and basic graphite techniques, then he briefly covered shading, values, perspective, composition, and the basic shapes that make up trees. These may provide some new tips for beginners but aren't detailed enough to teach drawing to a complete beginner.

The finished trees were often more like sketches than highly detailed graphite drawings. The basic technique was to rough in the basic shapes, refine those shapes, then add shading and some texture. He gave examples of the basic shapes and finished look for several different kinds of trees. There were step-by-step drawings (with 2 to 6 steps) showing how to draw tree trunks, branches, the base of the tree, foliage around the base, and a fallen tree. There were 3 landscape projects that focused on: a large oak, a pine, and a sycamore.

I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Terrie Case · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I knew how to draw trees. Oh, how naive I was. This book show in detail how to draw realistic looking trees. The step-by-step instructions make it easy to follow along. Soon, you are drawing the trees outside your window . . . and they look real!!! Knowing how to shade is invaluable.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to draw. While trees may not sound exciting to some, the techniques portrayed by the author can be used with other subjects.

Buy it now. You won’t regret it.


I received an ARC from Quarto Publishing through NetGalley. This in no way affects my opinion or rating of this book. I am voluntarily submitting a review.

[Cynthia D · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like to draw webcomics, yet I hate drawing scenery. This makes for boring comics.

I requested this book on NetGalley to see if I could really get some tips and tricks on drawing trees, and the artist definitely produced some good ways to handle drawing different types of trees and branches. This might be geared towards the physical artist with a pencil, but someone who is digitally learning how to draw can also utilize the steps in this book to create better looking scenes.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good book and it has a lot of real good techniques you can learn from.

[Heather Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drawing Trees is a excellent book for beginners or a art class. It offers great advice and techniques. Easy to follow instructions and a short book.

[Alexandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Get some great tools and techniques before getting into showing how to draw whole and different aspects of trees. Great for those who want to draw landscapes and nature.

[Siavash habibi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book with many examples but it's about 140 pages and not 32 !