Art Reflection- Tree Of Life

Tree of life symbolises different things in different cultures, but most of the culture has one tree of life, and we are asked to draw a tree of life in art class.

When I started, I was didn't know what kind of tree of life or what details or styles I should do. At first I want to have the tree trunk twisting at first.


Then I found one photo of a tree of life on the internet (the first picture below) which was a beautiful piece of art and a great picture for me to follow. I thought I could use this idea. Like, with circle outside and the leaves coming down a bit around. Afterwards, I found this picture on the internet and I thought the leaves looked really nice, so I took that idea too.
     

 And I drew this (the second picture on the right) which is mirrored). As you see, there is that sharp thing coming out of the tree trunk. My art teacher said that doesn't look that good, which I agreed. He/she also said that the tree trunk was too fat, which I totally agreed, too. And I tried to have the roots like the first photo, the one in the circle, but it was kind of difficult to draw, so he roots don't look so good and they are too neat. Well, at that time, that's the feedback I get to draw a better one in a big paper. Here comes the good drawing!



Here, you see the final, better drawing, on the left. It is still mirrored and the photo is lighter in the colour and may not look as good. But I have to admit, the drawing is actually better that what I expected. The ideas are same with the draft. But I came up with an idea called the "heart leaf". I came up with the idea because I would like some heart things but they kind of look girly, and this is about plants. I wanted flowers as decoration and I made it the same style with the leaves. I made the whole tree including the stems flow and look smooth. I also made them look random and messy but with some rhythm. And then I coloured it with pencil. and the idea of inverting the colour (above ground and below ground) and I thought it would look nice and creative and it would really really give out the contrast.





Here I will talk about what's good about my drawing (the drawing looks better than the photo, because I honestly can't think of something bad as it turned out better than what I thought it would be. Except that circular flowers may be drawn not so equal and the gaps between each line of the circular flower may not be equal, others were how I wanted it to be or even better.
The best thing I like about my drawing is that the lines flow very well- The lines are not just not shaky, but they flow, like, there aren't angles. The second thing is that the lines are dark enough and there is contrast, I liked my idea to inverse the colour (above and under ground) very much. Then what I also liked is that the drawing is balanced and it has a rhythm. Then I like the decorations around the circle, hearts leaves actually. And the circular drawing with the heart leaves pointing one direction shows motion actually, which is the leaves are moving around the circle, and it means everything is a cycle. I liked my drawing, and I hope you do, too!