The Process of Creating my Beloved Trees
Nearly 25 years ago, I lived in downtown Ottawa where there were, at the time, several art supply stores. Instead of taking lessons in art, I would go to the stores and buy and few supplies and experiment with them. I could go out several times a day, so I could buy one thing and then go back for something else to try later.
Somehow, I ended up creating this style of detailed drawing in copper and gold (brass) pencils and wax pastels. I say “somehow” because I have no recollection of the development process, at least while in the studio. I remember spending hours and hours drawing once I had created the style, I remember returning over and over again to the stores to find the perfect papers and boards to draw on, I remember trying other things, but I don’t remember the moments when I must have said something like “I like that, I’m going to do more of that”. Sometimes the creative process is a very different experience from the rest of life.
I also remember working in many different styles, experimenting and trying many many different things, but the subject matter was always trees. For my entire life, since childhood, I have sought out forests and trees with which to spend my precious time. A major consideration in every move I have ever made has been the vicinity to a large park. When I have dealt with illness and injury and loneliness, I have always had a tree to make friends with somewhere.
About My Trees
My life has been largely spent in Southern Ontario, Canada. The part of the world where I largely spend my time also includes Southern Quebec and Northern Ontario, although I have travelled further including much of Canada. I have lived longest in Ottawa but also in and around Toronto and Peterborough and Gatineau.
While I have always always loved the trees around me, it is only recently that I realized how exceptionally wonderful our trees are in this part of the world. I only recently realized how the trees that I have been looking at all my life have actually shaped my artwork. In another location I may have been painting beautiful views of mountains, or lakes in the middle of the forest. Here, what I find most incredible are the individual trees that can be found just sitting at the front of someone’s lawn, and then another next door, and another across the street and on and on it goes. I frequently go through the Arboretum of Ottawa, which is essentially a museum of trees in a park. In Toronto, not often noted for it’s nature but I assure you there are wonderful parks, ravines rivers and beaches, I have spent hours in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery which is also a veritable garden of trees.
Over the years, I have watched these trees grow, change, and sometimes be damaged and die, or taken down because of illness and for safety. Every day I see my memory of one or two trees that I miss in my neighbourhood or in a park, even though it was one or two decades ago that it was gone. But I am also in absolute awe of how the younger ones grow and expand and become the big wise ones amongst us.
I also draw tree-related living things, like this saw-whet owl. Have you ever seen one of these? They are so tiny and cute! And they make their nests in trees!
What I draw with
My medium are typically dry media such as pencil and wax pastel, which is harder than chalk pastel or oil pastel. They are metallic, and typically made of actual metals – copper and brass are my most-commonly used colours. Other colours are pigment mixed with mica. The effect is subtle – with light shining at an angle you can see that it is a shiny surface, however the overall look is so much more beautiful than with typical flat pigments. This comes across even in the prints, where the ink is not shiny, but it retains this natural complexity that comes from the tiny pieces of metal in wax reflecting light at slightly different angles.
Blog Articles
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Original Works
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Drawings or paintings or What?
I love that my artwork is difficult to define in terms of what it is. While it certainly doesn’t bother me at all when people call my artwork painting, the more accurate term is drawing. The difference is that a drawing is more line-based and is typically made with dry media, while painting is more colour-based and made from wet media.
So while the colours chosen
I also use the texture of the paper to create texture in the work, and for this reason I am extremely fussy about which paper I use.
That said, my artwork is made with a great deal more care in the creation of the surface than most drawings. I actually
What my artworks are definitely not are sketches. A sketch is specifically something that is not a final piece. Think of an expression like to sketch out an idea. Typically a sketch is something made to take down ideas for use later on. My artworks are most certainly final works made with a lot of time put into them.
Really the reasons why I make my artwork as I do is to highlight the form of the tree. Because so much of what is distinctive about a tree is its branches, this really lends itself to line. So for this reason, the word “drawing” best describes the type of artwork I do. What is rare is for drawings to be elevated to this level of precision and care. I really liken my artwork more to things like etching or Japanese decorative arts such as Chinkin which is made of gold inlay.
Unique
Influences
There are so many other kinds of art forms that inspire and influence my work. You might find it surprising that different kinds of traditional printmaking inspire me.
I am also very interested in many east-asian traditional art forms. Sumi-è ink paintings often place a great importance on the white space. An interesting note is that these works are called paintings in English
The Surface – The Materials
Equally to the very trees I depict, what I pride myself on is the surface of my work, which is difficult to show through photos on the web. I use 100% archival cotton rag paper (‘cotton rag’ is a term that means paper made from cotton fibres from the textile industry). Cotton rag paper, as opposed to wood pulp, is the higher quality archival paper that does not yellow with age.
The drawings on the paper are made from a mix or dry and wet medium, but mostly dry. I use metallic pencils and wax pastels made of copper and brass or colours made with pigment and mica. I love the careful and precious look that I can get with these subtly reflective materials. These have been carefully chosen and collected over many years as many of them are no longer manufactured and I have gone to great lengths and expense to acquire my collection of materials.
As some materials have become completely unattainable, I have learned to make my own pastels in my studio, creating my own formulas.
Since Childhood, I have had two interests which merged – my love of trees and of art
I really believe that it is because I spent so much time climbing trees as a child, and so was intimately aware of their different forms, strengths, bark textures, size, density of branches, fragility of twigs – that I would notice the trees in artwork and I was never pleased with how they were rendered. Trees were always in the background, even when the scene depicted almost only trees! I had a very strong desire to really recreate the details of the trees that I loved.