Trees have always been a favourite of mine. They do so much for us and share everything they have whether it is their life’s blood …. sap …. or their fruit …. nuts, apples … and they breathe for us, cleaning our planet each and every day. What do we do to them? We cut them down in outstanding numbers. Do they feel the teeth of the saw cutting through them? We don’t really know because we can’t read their “language” and they can’t tell us. I feel they must. How can they not? On this page I have drawn a ghost tree to represent all the trees that we have obliterated on our quest for progress. The two trees in the foreground were stamped using stamps I cut from foam, the leaves were done with modeling paste that I covered with pastel chalk after the paste had dried. I used gel medium to cover them which smeared the chalk and created the depth of a forest just budding out in the spring.

The March journal page for the Art of the Creative Mind yahoo group was ‘trust’ with a nature theme. I created a field of spring tree blossoms. The background was painted with watercolour crayons on gesso. The tree blossoms are modeling paste and stencils. I then painted the birds, leaves, grass and tree trunks with acrylics and the clouds are a bit of sponged gesso. I added a bit of sparkle just as there would be on a bright spring day.