I’ve been working on an illustration of a single ancient tree in a wood full of them. I have completed ink and pen sketches and many charcoal drawings and larger expressions of many of the 34 recognised ancient trees of Markstakes Common in East Sussex over the last year.
First a iconic ancient oak (tree 13 in the official register for the woods) got the linocut treatment, but then I wanted to decide on another to go full-Monty with colour mono print background, Chine-collée and water colour.
I’m still unsure about how to differentiate the oak growing up through the centre of this beech pollard. My estimation is that pollarding of beech and hornbeam in the woods on the common ceased around 150 to 200 years ago. The stems of the beech from the pollard height are a similar girth to the oak – I’m estimating 1.5m with the girth of the beech at chest height 3.56m. When included in the register of ancient trees in 2011 there was a notable companion holly bush/tree as well – this has since died away with only a short piece of new holly in its place.
Photographed from all sides this beech and companion oak can look very different – there is space as you get beyond the pollarding height between the beech and the oak … which leans away from the tree it is competing with.
I suppose I am trying to understand what is going on here in order to tell the trees’ story. Late summer 2021 one of the five or six stems of the oak in the top of the canopy broke. The lead covered branches sat in the canopy for nearly a year and a half like a very large broken umbrella.
All sketches and photographs are worked up into a number of ink drawings. From this from A3, to A2 and even A1 sizes I have planned how to create a print (linocut) while beginning an ink pen illustration. I’ve ended up with an A3 print of a mostly silhouetted tree/s but want to go again in a negative even if it ends up with the tree looking like it is in winter snow (which we had in the woods on 12th December 2022).
With the lino cut I think I’ve printed around 24, painted 12 and tried chine-collée with mixed results. Some of these are less ‘happy mistakes’ than others!
Currently I’m working in an A2 ink illustration, and thinking about progressing with a standardised mono print expressing the colours of the wood in early spring, with a first block for the wood and foreground leaf mulch and wood anemones … and a replacement cut of the trees.
On verra.
I’m also itching to work on an ancient hornbeam and a tangled ancient oak …
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