Painting Trees With Eliot O'hara (1954)

as people and animals we climbed them when we were young we walk among them now and when our end comes we may have our final rest under them we may even share their beauty by becoming one with them [Music] hmm [Music] good evening i am eliot o'hara starting on a country-wide sketching trip and inviting you who share my love for trees to join me we find the kamani tree and the royal palm in hawaii the saeba or silk cotton in florida spanish moss in georgia or an old cottonwood in tucson we'll visit key west for coconut trees and the state of maine for this wild cherry pictures can be realistic or abstract but before dealing with planes like this or rhythm or selective color we should go back to three fundamentals a possible symbol for the tree the structure of trunk and branches and the character of the foliage we'll start with this old elm in chagrin falls ohio the elm has a definite structure and the artist ever on the watch for symbols can easily notice that all of the limbs branch out to make the letter y this is more apparent in the winter when we can see that the smaller branches repeat the same motif let us use this symbol then in painting the elm if new smaller y's are added on top of each larger one the result will have to be an elm tree finding a symbol for it is the first step towards capturing the personality of any tree in the winter when branches are bare the sides of the y are steep but add several tons of leaves and the y widens causing the tree to mushroom out and to have a greater spread trees are not flat like printed wise but have branches that reach towards us in a way like these hands since light outdoors falls from above we see the dark underside of the branches that incline towards us but those on the far side show their light top sides we make this one come towards us also that one the others by contrast will naturally seem to recede in the bright sunlight of summer the trunk will have a light and a dark side i'm double loading the brush putting the light color for the sunlit part on one side and the dark shadow color on the other the simpler the description the better it is with this kind of stroke that i propose to paint the y symbols i'll do them as actual tree trunks and branches the brush held diagonally makes the smaller branches a shadow of a branch on the trunk when there are leaves they make a screen against the sky we can achieve this effect by smearing with the flat of the brush rather than by stroking the paint remains only on the highest part of the paper's granular surface the shadow side will be darker as well as the under parts of the leaf masses but should look warmer than this paint did on the pallet two brushes on the same handle save time they don't come that way but it's easy to pull out the stick and combine them they also take less space in the box twigs and small branches should go in while the foliage is still wet they should moreover be seen in the breaks of sky those which occur under the umbrella of leaves will naturally be dark darker here and very dark underneath now let us explore further the symbols for various trees the maple like the elm has a symbol the letter u steeper at the top but wider below so that the branch tips can stretch out to the vital sunlight these trees were found in north conway new hampshire the lombardy poplar it reaches for the sky and the artist's hand should feel the upwardness of the strokes as if drawing long stemmed l's the branches of the weeping willow start in the same way but as the brush moves up it tires and like a rocket trails and swings listlessly the japanese have an amusing symbol for the pine branch it is a duck's leg let that be the duck and this the leg with its webbed feet the pine trunk now replaces the duck and we have only to add needles at the tip like analogies in writing symbols in painting serve to heighten the quality the sycamore should be characterized by a sickle the same straight line with a curve on the end could serve as well for the apple or even the oak the oak is strong the hand that was listless when painting the willow must now hold the brush tightly and move with vigor there's an unexpected quality in oak twigs and branches they go their own way the cedar eucalyptus and monterey cypress have spiral markings in their bark like strands of a frayed rope this effect may be achieved in watercolor by long sweeping strokes of a brush which has so little paint that the hairs separate and act like a lot of small brushes this cypress is in la jolla california a four-time pitchfork is shown because its structure resembles that of the mangrove this tree as you can imagine is well anchored against the thrust of wind and tide turning from symbols to foliage we find that a rough brushed area as a basis may be treated to represent foliage of various trees tag it with a few large spots and you have a catalpa the same treatment could serve for a magnolia or a banyan a horse chestnut would have the spots in groups the maple also has large leaves and an atom they are brighter in color than those of almost any other tree a few brush marks label the character of the leaves it's great fun this putting in of dots and when a thing is fun we are likely to do too much of it so whether it is a red tree or a yellow one i advise that you use restraint while the poplar foliage is finer the same kind of rough brushing can describe it but they are being labeled with small round dots at the tips of the upswept branches this way for pine needles it is sufficient merely to flick the brush out from the edges of the painted area an equally good method for spanish moss but here we flick downward if it is a eucalyptus tree then we may tag the clusters by narrow brush marks blossoms as well as some kinds of foliage are handled in quite a different manner the background has been painted and before it is dry i drop clear water into it these strokes i have nicknamed oozles the process blurs one clump of foliage into another just as whole trees may dissolve in the distance trees like people are gregarious as in crowds a few individuals may dominate a scene while vast numbers are blurred and lost this is the background going in now when the blossoms are dry the dark branches can be added crisply to contrast with the wet blended oozles and the distance for these canoe birches in new hampshire the background is wet blended to throw it out of focus and the trunks are taken out while the paint is still wet the knife held flatly makes a broad mark but for the finer branches its tip is used do not hold the knife as if shaving but as if spreading butter that way the excess paint forms the triangular marks that usually occur under each branch intersection aspens in colorado or miller lookers in the south can be treated in the same way sycamore trunks turn and twist like serpents and is characteristic of them that the bark peels off leaving leopard spots of tan or gray most pine trunks have rough bark like this one at lake tahoe this old beach shows scar tissue and stumps from lost branches in painting these redwoods i used wide knife scratches to portray the vertical slabs of bark going now to the south we find entirely different sorts of trees their leaves or fronds are waxed and glossy to prevent the sap from evaporating in the tropical heat the banana is a very good example of this the trunk of the royal palm looks like cement but has annular creases these vary in thickness according to wet or dry years again the double loaded brush is used but it continually starts and stops to show these creases in the coconut bowl there are circular grooves too but they are like threads on a screw we paint them by putting on first a band of color and then a zigzag line with a small brush with certain palmettos the fronds do not drop off but are cut leaving spikes sticking out in spiral rows a possible way of painting them is with rectangular dabs and knifing but there may be better ways of portraying them the skirted or petticoat variety has to be painted with long whisked on strokes then there will be the dark cracks a very fine nesting place for rats i'm told this is the underside and these the dark cracks the royal palm does not sweep or fan outward but from the green sheath above the trunk unfurls a proud plume i think it's my favorite of all the palms in the palmetto we find a thin stalk with a fan this one is in california it may be interpreted with a double motion sidewise and outward in the actual painting of the tree it comes out in this manner coconut fronds are flexible and frequently occur on one side being more affected by the wind than those of the royal palm the top of the washingtonian palm radiates like spokes of a wheel from a center and has a circle of fans at the ends trees are various races and they have their own personalities i've tried to help you see their qualities and i hope added to your enjoyment of them we won't say goodbye to trees they will always be here unless we destroy them they are the other half of the living world and have almost as much capacity for being loved as people and animals we climbed them when we were young we walk among them now and when our end comes we may have our final rest under them we may even share their beauty by becoming one with them [Music] you