Last weekend, I painted at the Grapevine Botanical Gardens with several other artists in honor of National Public Garden Day. The Gardens were beautiful and the weather was very nice, a little warm, but breezy. I enjoyed talking to all the folks that came out and I really enjoyed drawing and painting. I was inspired by a very interesting tree trunk, I sketched in a few more roots and made it a little more gnarled, then painted it with watercolor. Working in my experimental journal, I sketched the tree in lightly, getting things where I wanted them, then began to glaze with my watercolors. I had already created the background colors with some acrylic inks and then began to put the transparent glazes of the watercolor on top, building up the beautiful colors. I’m not sure the image does the colors justice, but the tree and background are done in a vibrant yellow oranges and very earthy browns. Once I got home, I added the interesting handmade paper on the right side of the tree and then journaled a favorite verse of mine from a song by Joni Mitchell.
“They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum
And they charged all the people a dollar and a half just to see’em
Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
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