The art of the Christmas tree

Guest post by Anne-Laure Jacquart in Locronan, Brittany, France.

The good news for me is that this year I finally managed to handle the Christmas tree sketching issue. Frankly, isn’t this spiky, busy, illuminated, vegetal thing such a difficult subject to draw? I am happy I was able to sketch them in a fast and (I hope) nice way. It all started a few days before Christmas with this really loose sketch done during a visit to Locronan, Brittany, which is one of the loveliest villages in France. The tree is way too “scribbled” but this sketch put me on the right track, I think.

During December, Locronan has a Christmas market. It is amazingly lit and decorated with hundreds of garlands and dozens of trees. It was awesome to discover the streets with such a festive atmosphere. Unfortunately, it was freezing and I had forgotten my mittens, but perhaps the cold and the urge to sketch fast were what I needed to be bold.

I then discovered a fun way to sketch them with my fude nib fountain pen – I am not sure if I was using my Hero or blue Sailor pen, that day, or perhaps both. After my first “too scribbled Christmas tree”, I decided I could try a “rather scribbled but not too much” one too. This was a fast and loose sketch, but a bit more careful. I decided not to add colors on this one. The trick was to just “sculpt” the tree, making almost random loops and spikes and using a continuous crazy line. I am sure that drawing this way will be useful to show other trees or plants in some of my future urban sketches.

That day, I also made a loose sketch with watercolour only, drawing with a candle to start, to preserve white areas, such as the garlands and lights in the tree. (Candle wax repels water so the paper remains white.) Then I defined the negative shape of the hut (painting around it with the brush), and the shape of the tree, using the contrast between cool and warms colours, wet in wet.

The trip inspired me to make several sketches of our home Christmas tree, too. For this one, above, I linked the ink scribbles to watercolour strokes and splatters. The key was to let enough white into the tree to evoke light, and to merge the colours for a joyful rendering.

This sketch shows our tree with the Himalayan cedar growing in our backyard. I used ink for the indoor view, and only watercolour in cool colours for the cedar outside for a greater sense of depth. As I know, one of the hardest parts when sketching is stopping when there are enough marks. I decided to stop sketching the Christmas tree in ink when only a part of it was drawn, perhaps thanks to my experience with framing as a photographer. I then filled it using a watercolor wash and added a few splatters of colour. Isn’t it fun?

Anne-Laure Jacquart is an author and photographer who lives near Quimper, Brittany, France. See more of her sketches on Instagram.