Chapter 5 | ENCHANTED TREES

In some stories and movies there are enchanted trees like the Fangorn forest  in ‘Lord of the Rings’. These trees are half human, half tree and they can move. To create enchanted trees for the movie Lord of the Rings first many drawings are made, on paper and computer. One of these drawings I redrew and changed a little. In this example you might recognize many things from this lesson: twisted trunks with knots, but also the splitting and the wave movement of arms and branches and finally the leaves. I drew small stripes to make everything a little rounder. Close tot the ground you can see the beginning of the roots.

EXTRA: You may want to try drawing a ‘magic tree’ yourself.

Even dead trees or branches can be beautiful to draw (last image). On a holiday in the south of FranceI I picked this dead but still very strong branch (about 10 inches / 25 centimeter in size) and took it home. It twists in all directions, just like the trunk, arms and branches of the enchanted tree in Lord of the Rings. I first drew the branch very lightly with a 2B pencil and then colored it with a soft brush and transparent watercolor. So if you ever find a beautiful twig you could take it home and try to draw it.