On pine trees and pinecones

The smell of pine trees takes me back to childhood and walking in the pine plantings that dot the landscape in rural Michigan. There are several large pine trees in the community park from which I get my pine fix. They also furnish pine cones for use in my little rocket stove. I have never identified the species (that is very important to my inner science geek), so I decided to sketch the bark, needles, and  pine cones as a reminder to me when I get around to looking up a pine tree key. I haven't done that yet, so can't say the species, but the practice has been interesting.

The pine cones have been sitting in the middle of my table, so I keep coming back and trying different media in an attempt to make them look better. The pattern is a Fibonacci sequence that looks deceptively simple.

First, I did a couple of quick sketches.

Fude nib pen and ink on
Blick mixed media paper, 80lb. 

Koh-I-Noor Tri-tone pencils and Noodler's Lexinton Grey ink.
Blick mixed media, 80lb. paper

I wasn't really satisfied with these sketches, so did a more detailed sketch. That took more than an hour. Too long! I came to notice the mountain like details of the individual scales and began sketching from that angle.

Faber-Castell water colour pencils (student grade)
Blick mixed media 80lb. paper

Finally, tried using black paper to provide the shading and did two 15 minute sketches. I have been having fun with the effects on this black paper. The right sketch was done first with my new Spectrum Noir metallic pencils. They lay down smooth and show up well on black paper, but must be sharpened frequently to keep a point. So I tried the sketch on right with a Prismacolor Col-erase blue pencil, which seems very hard when I am trying to use it to put in light lines on mixed media paper. After I finished the sketch, I remembered the pencil is "copy not", meaning it is not supposed to photocopy! So I colored two scales with metallic pencil in case the blue didn't show up. It did.

15 minute pine cone sketches with Prismacolor Col-erase pencil on left
Spectrum Noir Metallic pencils on right. Canson 92lb. black drawing paper.

Here is what the pine cone is supposed to look like.

iPhone picture of the unidentified pine tree pine cone, including a pine nut.

The trees have little clumps of needles coming out of the side of the large trunks.

Pine needles. Graphite and colored pencil.
Strathmore 300 sketch paper.

iPhone picture of pine. I started sketching on site,
then finished from the picture after my feet went numb.