Recent Trees

Recent Trees
I draw trees, not perfect trees, nor particularly healthy trees. Instead these are trees that represent resilience, steadfastness, and persistence.
The technique I use to draw is burning, almost always on plywood, which presents a material paradox- full of glue and veneers it is highly processed wood. I use traditional pyrography pens, inks I make, and aquarelles, as well as small torches and heat guns. My goal is not a photo realistic copy of the pictures I take but an interpretation of the images represented by burned incising, a burned line. I feel that my work is successful when others start to pay attention to these types of trees, or tell me stories of trees that have been important to them, and of course when I hit the mark with the drawing itself, burned into the veneer like a tattoo.