I'm Challenging Myself to Sketch a Tree Every Day

Do you want to join me?

While scrolling through the work of some of my favorite artists recently, I came across someone who sketched a lighthouse or something similar every day for a month. Such a simple idea, but I couldn’t wait to make it my own. I love lighthouses, but my favorite things to draw are trees.

I said to a couple of friends, “I think I’m going to sketch a tree every day for a month.”

“Oh? I’m painting a tree right now!”

“Cool! Let me see it. Also, I insist that you join me on this horticultural pilgrimage!” or something brilliant like that.

Before the holidays, I embarked on a journey with an “Inkvent” calendar and I made a piece of art with the new color every day. Many of them were trees, but not all. I don’t want to be typecast, but drawing trees does something different to me. Landscapes are great. Skies are great. Structures and dystopian urban sprawls are great. But there’s nothing like a tree.

Drawing trees is meditative and liberating because a tree doesn’t have to be anything it doesn’t want to be. Make a mistake? That’s a branch. Blob some ink? That’s a knot.

A tree can be trained, but it will still do what it wants. I’m learning to grow and train bonsai trees, and I’m learning to train them in new and interesting ways while still making sure their needs are met and allowing them to develop their own personalities. It’s like parenting except the trees listen better.

Over enough time, a tree can make itself into any shape. It can split and come back together. It can die and be reborn. It can be blown over and uprooted and will still survive and thrive—just in a new direction. Like humans, they keep getting knocked down but will continue to get back up despite the circumstances. For so many reasons, we don’t grow straight up. We grow crooked and around obstacles and make our way the best way we know how.

Like a tree in the wild, we are free to sketch the way we see our trees. Today I may draw a craggy, dried-up tree barely hanging on for another frigid winter. Tomorrow I may do a baobab tree enduring the harsh heat of the savannah. The day after might be just a stump or a log. I’m not scared. I’d rather not know, and I’d rather not plan it.

I toyed around with posting reference photos for anyone who wants to join this little challenge. However, I don’t like those kind of restrictions. It’s not about everyone drawing one tree, it’s about people drawing all the trees that could ever be imagined. And maybe some that haven’t been imagined. That’s what art is.

The only rule I’ve given myself is sketching the tree using only one color. I prefer fountain pens or fine liners in black and white because I’m focused on values and texture, but may throw in a brush pen or a color at some point. Besides, the only thing that matters is to create. Sitting down and making a bit of art is the point, not the result.

Whatever you create, I’d love to see your trees.

Here are a few of mine from the last few months.