Paper Palm Tree - Steve's Sketchbook

Not Quite Real

The latest entry in the Steve’s Sketchbook series is titled Paper Palm Tree.

I heard it said somewhere along the way that you should never explain art. Just do your thing and let others figure out what it is supposed to be. If that is actually a serious rule, which I doubt, I am about to break it.

For this piece of art, I had the idea of a palm tree drawn with colored pencils on white paper, and then cut out and held up in front of what I consider to be a nice sky, blue with a few white clouds here and there. So that is what I did.

Except that there is a catch. The clouds and sky are actually part of the artwork, too. I actually almost spent more time on making the sky look realistic than I spent on drawing and coloring the palm tree. So yes, I am rather proud of that sky.

Another Palm Tree

While I was working on this, Laura looked at it and said, “Another palm tree, huh?” I think she was referring to the palm tree and beach scene from an earlier post.

So yes, another palm tree. But earlier in the day we had learned that the cruise we had planned to go on this summer had been cancelled. We pretty much knew it was coming, but it becomes a little more real once you get the final word.

In reply to Laura’s question, I said, “Yes, another palm tree. I figured I should do what I can to see a palm tree one way or another. This might be as close as I get for a while.” Because as you may know, palm trees don’t do so well here in Tennessee. This artistic version will have to do.

But don’t worry about us. We are just fine. We had not started packing for the cruise or anything like that. In fact, if it hadn’t been cancelled, we would have been in a slight predicament, because we had not done much of anything to prepare for it. The cancellation was very much expected.

Like everyone else, we just have to channel our energies toward something else right now. Like drawing palm trees. So often, life is better when you are enjoying what you have instead of missing what you don’t have.

Bible Verse

Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. - 3 John 2

About the Artwork

As with all of the recent art pieces, this one was created using the Procreate Pocket app on my iPhone. I am still enjoying trying out all of the different brushes and styles, just to see what all I can do.

For the palm tree, I just drew it and then colored it using some colored pencil brushes. Nothing really special there, except that I was glad to get the sort of colored pencil look that I had in mind. I then created a white shape behind the palm tree, extending a distance out from the tree, to be the “paper” that the tree would appear to be drawn on.

To create the sky, I did some airbrushing, using a darker color of blue for the top of the sky, a lighter blue for the bottom, and something in between for the middle. I knew I wanted to get a gradient look to the sky with it being darker at the top and lighter at the bottom, because that is how the real sky looks.

I then used Procreate’s “cloud” brush, which is pretty amazing. It creates some very realistic clouds. I did attempt to touch them up with some sunset colors, but that did not look quite right, so I just left the clouds white instead. From a distance, you might have trouble telling that the sky is not real, which is exactly the effect that I was going for.

As with several of the Steve’s Sketchbook pieces, this one is nothing at all like the last several. I like not being confined to just one thing!