For this exercise I was asked to spend some more time really looking at my tree in detail. I was asked to spend at least an hour on this drawing. 

The media I chose to work with was charcoal. In some of my past drawings my charcoal work hasn’t been too effective and I wanted to rectify this. Especially after studying  Odilon Redons work earlier on in the course with his dramatic use of tonal contrasts. 

I worked A3 size on white paper. I decided to focus in on a smaller area of the tree, the splitting of the trunk into two branches. This is always the area that fascinates me the most, where the trunk divides. I also feel that focusing on a smaller section of the tree where I can really observe the small detail will help me in the long term when I come to drawing the entire tree. 
I found this exercise difficult as I kept getting lost in the detail and where everything was positioned. The problem with so much detail was I seemed to get confused easily. 

Overall I am pleased with my drawing. It seemed such a daunting task when I started especially as I was working my way observing the small busy detail. Not only am I pleased I managed to complete this drawing but I am pleased that it does resemble the parting of my tree trunk and it does show the size and strength of this old tree.

I am also pleased that I managed to successfully work in charcoal. I feel that the charcoal allowed me to capture some really dark shadowy areas that I may not have successfully achieved with other media’s. I was also able to lift out some much lighter areas with my putty rubber and add the fine detail of the bark with my sharpened charcoal. 

Even though I haven’t quite managed the same technique as Odilon Redon, I still feel this is a good start. 

critically speaking I would say that there are some areas of form in my drawing that still look quite flat, this is something I need to work on and develop so all of my work is consistent. 

For future work I would like to continue to study Odilon Redons work, as I love how he manages to capture such heightened moods with his dramatic tone