Learning to Draw Trees
Learning to Draw Trees is an illustrated journal documenting a year-long artistic journey—one that began with a simple challenge: to learn how to draw trees.
In 2021, artist and writer Dan Sumption set out to teach himself this skill, capturing a different tree each month for Liverpool Arts Lab’s Bodge Magazine. This book brings together all twelve of those monthly drawings, alongside a wealth of intermediate sketches, reflections, and practical insights gleaned along the way.
Sumption’s progress over the course of the year is both striking and inspiring—a testament to the magic of sustained attention and patient observation. Through his musings on line, form, and the unique character of trees, he invites readers not only to appreciate the nuances of tree drawing but also to embark on their own creative journeys.
And for those who prefer to become a tree rather than just sketch one, the book includes an unexpected twist: a role-playing game where you take on the role of a tree, navigating the slow rhythms of seasons, growth, and survival.
Printed in a beautifully designed volume, Learning to Draw Trees is more than a how-to book; it’s an invitation to see the world differently—to slow down, observe, and perhaps pick up a pencil and join in.
Daniel Sumption
Daniel Sumption is a writer, artist, and explorer of strange landscapes, both real and imagined. His work meanders through folklore, psychogeography, poetry, and roleplaying games, always seeking the peculiar edges of storytelling.
His bibliography is as eclectic as his interests. In King Arthur vs Devil Kitty (illustrated by Maximillian Hartley), he resurrects a medieval French tale in the style of a 1970s picture book, complete with Monty Python-esque absurdity. Mostly Harmless Meetings offers 100 folkloric encounters for roleplaying games, where gossiping fleas and aristocratic frogs replace the usual combat fodder. Gespenwald is an adventure set in a ghostly forest of undead mycelium, appearing for only one night each year.
Beyond the realm of games, Daniel’s curiosity leads him into artistic and poetic experiments. Learning to Draw Trees is a year-long journey of sketching trees, culminating in a book that blends art, introspection, and even a tree-based roleplaying game. His poetry collection, Accidental Poetry Roadie, maps the intersections of land, loss, and language, while Working Nights is a photographic tribute to the nocturnal party-life of Sheffield and London in the early 2000s.
Daniel’s work celebrates the liminal and the overlooked: the places between night and day, past and present, fiction and folklore. Whether through words, drawings, or game mechanics, he invites readers to step off the path, to listen to the trees, and to embrace the mysteries that lie just beyond the everyday.
