The challenge for my winter art class was to focus on trees. I love trees but I really struggle to draw them. They are just so big and I have an idea in my mind of what a tree looks like and that idea just keeps getting in the way of reality and so my art just never looks right.

In order to improve we really have to look and understand what we see. So I started looking and I haven’t stopped and I keep discovering new things. This tree is the big white birch that is in Swasey Parkway. Of course it is only part of the tree, but that is what I could manage.

Thanks to one of my fellow students, I’ve also found that I have a Shag bark Hickory in my yard. It’s huge so it’s been there all along and I haven’t noticed it. My neighborhood is filled with Sycamore trees and one lonely and beautiful Elm. There is so much to discover when we look.