Drawing a Palm Tree

I searched on Google and Pinterest and Wikipedia and struggled to find good references for palm trees. Maybe I should have mixed it up and tried a more interesting search term…

“Palm Tree in the wind” for example…

Since I could not find a good reference I looked in my memory. I remembered a windy evening by the beach. My wife and I stood on the balcony listening to the howling wind and a Dancing palm tree, (another good search term).

We watched the palm tree dance. And I hypothesized why palm leaves were the way they were. On one hand, they need to reach for sunlight so they need to be able to spread out. On the other hand, they needed to let the sea breeze pass through.

The finger-like leaves of a palm are perfectly suited for that. A thousand hands playing an air piano.

I think of this as I create this icon.

This is the shape I start with, a single trunk bending in the wind, with a bell shape of leaves clinging on. I then cut out space between leaves and then the spaces where the leaves spread apart. Approaching this like a 2-D Sculpture.

So here’s what you can learn:

1. Nothing beats paying attention in real life to understand a subject matter

2. Use interesting search terms if you want the interesting search result

3. Look for patterns and shapes, start with the biggest shapes, then cut away at it.