Every once in a while, I’m asked a pointed question about my work. Like, why trees? I don’t know. I like trees, I guess? I mean, they're nice, they make shade, they bear fruit, they're often full of bird song. They give us things to do in the fall, like, look at them in awe. They provide jobs for the rake companies.

For whatever the reasons, between 2004 and 2007, I completed over a hundred artworks in various media. All of it trees. I won’t lie to you and suggest my choice of subject matter was all about making some kind of statement. Later on, perhaps. Yes. But, at first it was a pure aesthetic thing. I just like the way they look. Trees are very graphic. (Ask a young kid to draw a tree: one big thick vertical line for the trunk, a few more lines, a funny looking squiggly oval at the top for leaves. You know you're looking at a tree.)

Like most of the tree pictures in my portfolio, the winter paintings are said to resemble stained glass. For me, it's been less about the subject and more about the surface. This is how I see it… the bodies of the trees, the horizon lines and the twists and turns of the branches divide up the picture plane, allowing for all kinds of little areas of interesting space, which I love to explore, one by one. I like filling in the colors. It’s a methodical, time consuming exercise and I can get completely lost in the process of working the individual areas of shape and line. Hours can go by or days can go by…particularly with oil paint because it dries slow. Spiritually it was restful and cleansing, which studio work can be. Or maybe it's therapy. Whatever. It kept me off the streets.

I was calling myself a Colorist in those days. Maybe I still am. We'll leave the definitions and categories to the MFAs. But I do have a fixation with the harmony or disharmony of color relationships, and I'm forever trying to create and manipulate tension in my work. I really like to prove visual ideas to myself. With the concept of winter, I stuck to a limited palette of cool tones of blues and warm tones of  browns. The warms play against the cools, creating tension, heightening the sensation of a hard winter day, the thought being to express that stillness and loneliness I was feeling at the time. Of course colors supposedly have all kinds of psychological, hidden meanings. And we can go into that in the future. I think I just had a lot of blue paint to be perfectly honest.

In the winter images, I used metallic and iridescent colors for the first time. The effects of these particular paints give you the sense of a shimmering winter scene right after an ice storm or a freezing overnight. If you live north of the Mason Dixon Line, closer to Canada than Dixie, this work might feel familiar. I was, still am, pleased with the results. My photographer was not so happy a camper and he let me know it. I’d forgotten what a nightmare it is to control flash on metallic surfaces. Getting slides shot was not the usual 'in-and-out-you're-done' camera assignment. (Oh well, oopsie). I’m sure I paid extra. Ah, 'tis the price and the glory of not planning ahead.

But that's how it happened. Today, I'm still working with nature-based themes and maybe one day I might revisit trees. Or not. You'll have to stay tuned, keep checking in here. If you can hang out a little longer you can see a larger portfolio of my artwork, including more trees by visiting http://www.absolutearts.com/annhaaland/. Many prints, pastels and some of the paintings are available for purchase. I hear they go great with coffee and board meetings. : )

© 2010 Ann Haaland