Thoughts on sketching trees
Nitin Sawhney
Dec. 7, 1998


The activity of sketching a tree started out as a structured approach
as I tried to replicate the features of a little Bonzai on my
table. Gradually I learned to avoid measuring each branch and leaf on
my sketchpad and started to generalize patterns, redrawing leaves in
branches that never existed. This produced a more natural effect and
somewhat morte satisfying experience.
 

One interesting aspect was the printed text behind my drawing paper -
I did'nt notice it until I scanned in my drawing into photoshop. The
printed text from the problem set was enhanced when I created certain
effects in photoshop. This later inspired some ideas ...
 

In the digital domain I used an off-the shelf particle-based algorithm
to create a tree-like structure. It started to seem like the same
activity I had done in sketching, by growing general patterns rather
than exact replicas. I later tried using geometric squares instead of
brances to provide a more abstract effect. Finally it occured to me
that the text I noticed earlier in my sketched drawing was really ann
important artifact of my drawing process, so I incorporated it in my
final piece. The final version parsed the text form the problem set to
create a narrative tree that represented the problem itself in a
fascinating manner.