Daily Doodle # 22: A Tree for Earth Day

Giant Sequoia

Along the path at Green Lake

I think this is a Giant Sequoia along the path at Green Lake.  Such a nicely shaped tree, and an almighty presence.

Daily Doodles, My New Practice

Daily doodles # 1

I was entranced when I watched John Franzen drawing lines in this YouTube video: Each Line, One Breath.  What an imaginative leap to do line drawings so contemplatively that the strokes become a meditation.  I was inspired to use line drawing as my own meditative practice, one that I will call “Daily Doodles.”  I don’t know whether I will be able to sustain a daily doodles practice, but it’s a new month, and on day one I am motivated to at least attempt it.

For my first daily doodle, I drew on a page I ripped out of a New York Times Magazine.

I could draw and paint trees for years and years and never get to the bottom of their mystery and allure.

“Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?”
— Walt Whitman, from “Song of the Open Road”

John Grade, ‘Middle Fork’ on display at the Seattle Art Museum

Here is another artist’s impression of tree art:  John Grade’s suspended sculpture of a tree currently on display in the atrium of the Seattle Art Museum.  It’s a cast of a 140-year-old Western Hemlock from the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River.

And this week I fell in love with another “tree artist,” Donna Leavitt, who draws with graphite pencil the intricate shadings and textures of the bark of immense trees.  Her large works are collages of smaller sheets of paper. I saw these on display at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art’s “Revering Nature” exhibit:

Donna Leavitt, ‘Majesty,’ 2016

Donna Leavitt, ‘Thrust,’ 2012

Donna Leavitt, ‘The Sentinel,’ 2010

I’m falling in love with images of trees.  Imagine how captivated I can become with the real, live trees around me.

 

 

In Praise of Idleness Drawings 87 – 95

 

Fuchsia

Trumpet flowers

Leaf

Calla lilies

Trees

Great blue heron

Face

Crow

Hands

The end

It was a rush to the finish, but I did complete this project by the end of the year as I had hoped.  Time for new projects in 2017.

 

Happy New Year!

In Praise of Idleness Drawing 20

Plowed field, trees, and sun

In Praise of Idleness Drawing 18

Night time

In Praise of Idleness Drawings 14 and 15

Fall leaves

Tree

In Praise of Idleness Drawing 9

Seward Park

Trees are Poems

“Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky.” — Walt Whitman, 1892

The Lawrence Tree by Georgia O’Keeffe, 1929

Trees are such miracles of nature.  Their diversity simply astounds.  I am looking forward to making more paintings of trees in the coming years.  I am inspired by this painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, one of my all-time favorites.  You can make a quick acquaintance with this O’Keeffe painting at this link: http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/okeeffes-the-lawrence-tree.html

There are many lovely books about trees, and here are two incredible ones:

Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time by Beth Moon.  I love her photographs of old and noteworthy trees.

Quiver Tree from Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time by Beth Moon

Double page spread from Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time

Strange Trees by Bernadette Pourquie and Cecile Gambini.  This is an English edition of an award-winning picture book from France.  The art and text tell the stories of 16 truly unusual trees from around the world.  My favorite is the “Dynamite tree” from Trinidad, whose seed capsules explode with a sudden bang.

Strange Trees picture book

Baobab tree from Strange Trees

I was familiar with only three of the featured trees:  the giant sequoia, the ginkgo, and the baobab.  I had seen a baobab grove in Botswana, and was interested to hear it called the “upside-down tree” because it looks like it has its roots on its head!  Like many trees adapted to dry environments, the bulbous baobab can store water in its trunk. The author calls it a “potbellied giant.”

Baobab grove, Botswana, 2007

Watercolor sketch of baobab trees

Touched by Trees

Trees
by W. S. Merwin

I am looking at trees
they may be one of the things I will miss
most from the earth
though many of the ones I have seen
already I cannot remember
and though I seldom embrace the ones I see
and have never been able to speak
with one
I listen to them tenderly
their names have never touched them
they have stood round my sleep
and when it was forbidden to climb them
they have carried me in their branches.

“Lawrence Tree” painting by Georgia O’Keeffe

Here are some beautiful books about trees:

I think Overleaf is a particularly creative compilation of leaf paintings — pairs of individually rendered leaves, front view and back view.

 

 

 

Cottonwood Cathedral

 

Cottonwood gallery near Gothenburg, Nebraska

When my flight from Seattle was descending into Denver International Airport my first thought was, “Where are the trees?”  You could see how the early homesteaders must have cherished the sight of trees — most often cottonwoods lining river and stream banks — as they travelled across the plains of Nebraska and Colorado because the landscape is so empty of trees.

Colorado landscape with cottonwoods

When I spotted this magnificent gallery of cottonwood trees arching over a road near Gothenburg, Nebraska along I-80, I couldn’t resist the urge to stop for photographs.  The over-arching branches created a vault like the interior of a cathedral.  Awesome!