I love collecting their leaves, their seeds, the conks that I sometimes find on their trunks on my woodland walks and of course taking their photos.
I also love the illustrations and paintings of trees, particularly the ones done by 19th - century British artists.
The Witch Broom Tree in this painting was inspired by Emily Carr's gorgeous trees of British Columbia.
"In 1818 Constable exhibited a beautiful drawing of elm trees at the Royal Academy. It failed to sell and so it was still in Constable’s possession two decades later, when he added a note on the back to the effect that “This noble Elm … was blown down April 1835.” It was a portrait, in other words, of a particular tree, one whose fortunes he continued to follow, and whose eventual loss he lamented long after he’d moved away from the area." ~ Professor Christiana Payne
And like John Constable, I adore painting them. When I came upon a tree down the road from where I live that looked quite peculiar I took a few photos of the tree for future reference which would come in handy when I went to paint it. At the time I didn't know why the tree was afflicted with such unusual, odd-looking, broom-like distortions but after looking it up online I discovered it was disease trees get and not from witches : )
I suppose the namesake is because it reminds one of a spooky broom belonging to a witch. So I decided to paint the Witch Broom Tree in oil but it was my first time painting entirely in oil and I didn't realize just how long it takes for the painting to dry and cure. This painting is still very wet.
I added a couple of spiders and webs to the tree and eventually would like to add a black cat and create more depth to the scenery before it's complete. Hopefully, in the process, I wouldn't destroy it.
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