Pencil Sketching: Trees

I wanted to improve the basics of pencil sketching. Though I have been attached to sketching (usually as a hobby) all my life, but I primarily focussed on other things. Sketching from memory was never my domain. All I did was portraits. I started Pencil Sketching (2nd Edition) yesterday. It is a very decent book I must say. The illustrations are very good and the explanations are also easy to understand. Overall it's a great book.

At first I did some random sketches.

Then I practiced some shading and texturing. The rough scribbles are tree leaves.

Today’s topic is 'trees' so I directed my attention totally upon trees.

 

Trees without foliage give a lot of pain. The best method I found was to draw the skeleton structure with minimum branches first. Then it's better to add some details. Usually the branches get more clustered on top. The third and final step is to start shading. I must say that I need to improve a lot.