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”It had struck me how firmly the saplings were rooted in the ground -
I started on them with the brush, but because the ground was already impasted, brush-strokes simply vanished into it.
Then I squeezed the roots and trunks in from the tube and modelled them a little with the brush.”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, 3 September 1882

Yesterday evening I was working on a slightly rising woodland slope covered with dry and mouldering beech leaves
The ground was light and dark reddish brown, emphasized by the weaker and stronger shadows of trees casting half-obliterated stripes across it.
The problem, and I found it a very difficult one, was to get the depth of colour,
the enormous power and solidity of that ground --
and yet it was only while painting it that I noticed how much light there was still in the dusk --
to retain the light as well as the glow, and depth of that rich colour,
for there is no carpet imaginable as splendid as that deep brownish-red
in the glow of an autumn evening sun,
however toned down by the trees.”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, 3 September 1882

”Corot drew and modelled every tree trunk with the same devotion and love as if it were a figure.”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, c.September 1881

If one draws a pollard willow as if it were a living being, which after all is what it really is,
then the surroundings follow almost by themselves,
provided only that one has focused all one's attention on that particular tree
and not rested until there was some life in it.”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, c.15 October 1881

”… in all nature,
for instance in trees,
I see expression and soul… ”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, 5 November 1882

”The very broad-fronted houses here [in Zweeloo] are set among oak trees of a superb bronze.
Tones in the moss of gold-green,
in the ground of reddish or bluish or yellowish dark lilac-greys,
tones of inexpressible purity in the green of the little cornfields,
tones of black in the wet tree trunks,
standing out against the golden rain of swirling, teeming autumn leaves,
which hang in loose clumps --
as if they had been blown there,
loose and with the light filtering through them --
from the poplars,
the birches,
the limes
and the apple trees.”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, 2 November 1883

”I'm in a fever of work since the trees are in blossom
and I want to do a Provençal orchard full of enormous brightness. ”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, c.2 April 1888

This morning I worked on an orchard of plum trees in bloom;
all at once a fierce wind sprang up,
an effect I had seen nowhere else but here, and returned at intervals.
The sun shone in between, and all the little white flowers sparkled. …
I went on painting at the risk and peril of seeing the whole show on the ground at any moment --
it's a white effect
with a good deal of yellow in it, and blue and lilac,
the sky white and blue.”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, c.11 April 1888

I am working on nine orchards:
one white;
one pink, almost red;
one white-blue;
one grayish pink;
one green and pink.
Yesterday I overdid one of a cherry tree against a blue sky;
the young leaf shoots were orange and gold,
the clusters of flowers white,
and that against the green-blue of the sky was wonderfully glorious.
”
Letter to Emile Bernard, c.21 April 1888

i have been knocking about in the orchards,
and the result is five size 30 canvases,
which along with the three studies of olives that you have,
at least constitute an attack on the problem.
The olive is as variable as our willow or pollard willow in the North,
you know the willows are very striking,
in spite of their seeming monotonous,
they are the trees characteristic of the country
. Now the olive and the cypress have exactly the significance here as the willow has at home
. What I have done is a rather hard and coarse reality beside their abstractions,
but it will have a rustic quality,
and will smell of the earth. ”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, c.21 November 1889

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers.
I revere them when they live in tribes and families,
in forests and groves.
And even more I revere them when they stand alone.
They are like lonely persons
. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness,
but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.
In their highest boughs the world rustles
, their roots rest in infinity;
but they do not lose themselves there,
they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only:
to fulfil themselves according to their own laws
, to build up their own form,
to represent themselves.
Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree
. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun,
one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk:
in the rings of its years, its scars,
all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness,
all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years,
the attacks withstood, the storms endured.
And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings,
that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible,
the strongest,
the ideal trees grow

Trees are sanctuaries.
Whoever knows how to speak to them,
whoever knows how to listen to them,
can learn the truth.
They do not preach learning and precepts,
they preach,
undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life.
The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique,
unique the form and veins of my skin,
unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches
and the smallest scar on my bark.
I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust.
I know nothing about my fathers,
I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me.
I live out the secret of my seed to the very end,
and I care for nothing else.
I trust that God is in me
. I trust that my labor is holy.
Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer,
then a tree has something to say to us:
Be still! Be still!
Look at me!
Life is not easy, life is not difficult.
Those are childish thoughts.
Let God speak within you
, and your thoughts will grow silent.
You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home
. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother.
Home is neither here nor there.
Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

So the tree rustles in the evening
, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts:
Trees have long thoughts,
long-breathing and restful,
just as they have longer lives than ours.
They are wiser than we are,
as long as we do not listen to them.
But when we have learned how to listen to trees,
then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts
achieve an incomparable joy.
Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree.
He wants to be nothing except what he is.
That is home. That is happiness.”
¯ Hermann Hesse

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
¯ John Muir

“When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”
¯ Maya Angelou

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.
Some see nature all ridicule and deformity...
and some scarce see nature at all.
But to the eyes of the man of imagination,
nature is imagination itself.”
¯ William Blake

“Two Trees
A portion of your soul has been
entwined with mine
A gentle kind of togetherness, while
separately we stand.
As two trees deeply rooted in
separate plots of ground,
While their topmost branches
come together,
Forming a miracle of lace
against the heavens.”
¯ Janet Mills,

“A cold wind was blowing from the north,
and it made the trees rustle like living things.”
¯ George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Thanks Parker..alas,no Tropical Sunsets here in Quebec, so seeing your stunning pic so alive in glorious color, is totally amazing on this grey,drizzling October morning

I have learned much about painting trees from this great 20th century Master artist John F. Carlson...here are some ideas he expressed..
You will learn to paint trees only by understanding them, their growth, their nature, their movement – and realizing that they are conscious living things. A tree seldom if ever encroaches upon the liberty of another tree. It never wastes its growth in unnecessary twistings

and to make those trees stand out..
Clouds are fascinating to paint because they are the only element in a landscape that possesses free movement. (John F. Carlson)

Acrylic on card stock miniature ~ approximately 3" x 5" (7.62cm x 12.7cm)

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:-) Hope your day goes along swimmingly!!!

Tags: gardening perfection original, lake,pond,fish,park,shore,water,bank,bass fishing,park bench,lakeside living,insects,nature,birds,yellow flowers,red flowers,landscape,curb-appeal,plants,shrubs,outdoor,nature,yellow flowers,grass,green,garden,lawn,gardening,butterfly,ground-cover,climbing flowers,flowering bush, flowering trees,sunshine,southern living,leaves,bass fishing,crappy fishing,aqua,arbor

The Columbia Icefield is the largest ice field in the Rocky Mountains of North America. Located in the Canadian Rockies astride the Continental Divide along the border of British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. This image was captured late in the afternoon during a warm summer and the Athabasca Glacier can be seen on the extreme right with a road for specialised viewing vehicles leading up to it.

All my artworks are painted on silk, there doesn't seem to be many silk artists on FAA, but without a doubt it is my favourite medium to work with. I love the vividness of the dyes, the challenge as you can't really redeem any mistakes during the process, it's a wonderful medium to paint with :)

Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rocky Mountains - during summer.

Rural South Australia - taken a few years ago during the worst drought in 100 years.

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Thank you, Carole for your outstanding work as an administrator!

This was an extremely fun and exciting shoot~!

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Fall is my favorite time of the year. I added a painted look to my autumn photograph...would love your feedback :)

All Caught Up!~ Thank you!

Both paintings were originally painted on silk