In 2007 I travelled to Palo Alto, where the trees grow tall.
Coming from South-Central Alaska, where most trees are short and we have limited species, I felt lucky to see the variety born of a warm climate.
Sketchbook in hand, I spied three towering pines, so close together they looked like one tree. How, I wondered, does anyone fit a tree that size onto a mere piece of paper???This is how my sketching obsession began.
First I drew the bottoms, then I drew the tops.?I kept sketching, using different kinds of line, different drawing tools, trying to see the trees in their totality.
Six Tree Sketches, November, 2007
On the final drawing I managed to include the tops, the lowest branches and the trunks. Unfortunately, one of the trunks doesn't have a tree attached to it!
November?2008, 2009, 2011
On later visits I surprised myself: using much smaller sketchbooks, I got the full trees onto the 4 x 6 pages. Thanks to the trees, my drawing skills were improving.
My?connection to them deepened. In the dry heat of summer they looked?thirsty. Then?a new concrete parking garage rose up beside them. I worried that the heavy construction equipment was jostling their roots.
They were?important to me. This was more than a sketching obsession, they were my muses.
April 2016, November 2016
As I returned year after year, I always checked in with them. This year I indulged my sketching obsession twice.
I confess that not a single one of these 11 drawings shows their true proportions. Every drawing is stubby by comparison. Clearly, if I am ever to do them justice, I have to keep trying.
Especially now that there's this other tree . . .
Palm Tree, Palo Alto, November 2016
Here is an entry in my series How it Looks in A Frame.?Young Robin,?13.75"h x 16"w, colored pencil on paper. Click?here?to see it without the frame.
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