These wonderful characters, like figures, surpassing the greatest of sculptures. Observing them reminds me of working with the human figure. Trees follow certain patterns/anatomy, and once you get familiar with them you learn what to expect, and you see the familiarity and the differences between trees. And like drawing any other living being, the more time you spend with them the more familiar you get with their gesture and body language, how they reacted to the temperaments of climate, wind, sun, or the weight of snow, each of them has their own life experience.
Look at a group of trees and notice how differently they reach out with their branches to catch the sunlight. Simply the idea of how much longer they have been here really makes the case for how little we can know about trees. We, humans, have been around for about 6 million years, and trees, somewhere around 400 million years. (Makes me wonder how they spent their time evolving.)
And the idea that we have such a close relationship with them, they used to be our homes, we still turn to them for most of our building materials. With that in mind, it's easy to understand how being in the forest can have such a calming effect on us.
Here are some drawings from time spent in the company of trees.
