Three Trees

During our self isolation period due to the coronavirus, I wanted to try and use my time usefully and do the things I usually don’t have time for. For me this means writing about the visual work I create and maybe exploring my reasons for creating it. As being at home offers its own set of challenges right now it also emphasises how much we depend on nature to add beauty to our day and award some sense of joy. As I’m writing this a wood pigeon is sitting perfectly balanced drinking from an aluminium plant pot on our balcony, his only concern continuing to build a nest in our nearby conifer.

For about 18 months I have been aware of a row of medium sized trees that are visible on my daily drive from home to my dads. I’ve enjoyed watching these trees through the seasons, watching them come into leaf in spring and summer and then begin to turn a beautiful deep red and then brown as the cycle begins again. They are planted in a row, in an elevated position and remind me of a very slow performance piece that takes place daily. Sometimes I have walked up to them and taken pictures and thought about turning them into a piece of work, a kind of tree portrait, something to note that these trees are here and that I enjoy watching them grow.

As work comes in and deadlines take over, these trees end up at the bottom of a long to do list, but importantly I’ve always kept them on the list knowing I would enjoy the process of working on them when I eventually had the time. Over the past two weeks I have had the time to revisit the trees and work out what I wanted to do with them. Sometimes I find purely the physical process of creating something rewarding in itself, the work doesn’t have to become anything, or go anywhere, just an experience of creating it is enough. 

I started to focus on just three trees that I liked the most in terms of composition, I decided to create a minimal pared back aesthetic, concentrating purely on the tree structures, branches and leaves and nothing else, just a pale blue sky behind. I found the working process meditive, continually checking the composition of the leaves against the overall tree structure, and that the colours represented the trees when they were in their deep red stage when they look most spectacular. I like the quality of them being frozen in time. I have attached some images that show the drawing process, illustrating the many lines and shapes and shown as pixel dots or outlines.

I thought the three trees worked together best as a triptych of prints that illustrates them as I see them planted in a row in real life. When displayed in a set of three it reminds me of three windows that perfectly frame the trees outside. I like them and I’m glad I persevered with them, I hope you like them too.

Prints available from my online store, click here

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