Behind-The-Scenes | The Evergreen Tree Drawing Collection
Why Evergreens? I’m glad you asked.
Living in Florida, we don’t often get to experience Fall-like weather until mid-December. However, after Hurricane Sally swept through in September, a temporary crisp air settled in and all of our trees, those that hadn’t been fully toppled, were stripped bare overnight. It seemed that the only survivors not left completely naked were the cedars, the pines, and the palms. I was grateful for their endurance, even as they eventually showed their battle scars in the form of browning needles, giving me another peculiar taste of the season.
After the debris was cleared and I had space to think again, I turned to this, now unfamiliar, landscape. We had lost over twenty of our towering trees. The old giants that had once sheltered our property and given it its feeling of seclusion, were now nothing but a memory. I felt that I was living in someone else’s home. When I set foot outside, everything was unfamiliar. It was both a beautiful and heartbreaking experience as I tried to understand my new surroundings.
It was over a month before I ventured back into the art studio, but when I did finally put a pencil in my hand, I began drawing trees. I hunted for the forms that spoke to me, and inevitably with the holidays on the horizon, and thoughts of winter not far off, I turned to the heroes of this time of year. Pines, cedars, firs, junipers, these enormous phantoms of the wilderness spoke to me and with my pencil, I’ve been fervently trying to capture their bewildering spirit.
The dark, buttery graphite summons the deep and ancient moody nature of these trees, and yet, whenever light hits the silvery marks on my paper, it summons their ethereal quality. When drawing, I’m focused on both the specimen and the spirit. Walking in the woods, it’s hard not to feel the soul of the trees. It’s that tickling feeling that you’re being watched, but it’s not a menacing presence, more like an awareness of your silent guardians as you slip among the branches.
The Evergreen Collection is my ode to the romance of trees.
They’re alluring and mysterious and I find nothing more bucolic than a forested landscape.