Stinkin Tree Watercolor Studies

Early studies 1 & 2

About two months ago before the leaves arrived I spent alot of time
painting tree compositions.  So much so my two boys soon grew tired of the subject matter.  They called them "My Stinkin' Trees"  thus the name for this series of which I show a few here.

Wherever I looked I saw intriguing possibilities to study figure ground, the upward sweep of tree branches yearning for the sun's warmth.  Last year I spent a great deal of time sketching tiny pencil drawings in my Moleskin sketchbook which percolated for almost a year until one I needed to explore what I was walking by everyday and taking pictures of with my camera.  Call it an obsession or call it looking closely and learning to love what surrounds us.

Thus began a number of watercolor interpretations of natural and arranged scenes from the woods out behind our house to traveling on snow covered back roads in the hills around Montpelier.  I studied various color combinations with this work, along with gradations and various techniques involving intermingling of more sedimentary colors such as burnt sienna or prussian blue with transparent ones like cobalt blue for example.  Click on the individual images and zoom in to see what I mean.

Blue Yellow Study

Each image was a meditative experience for me providing a medium by which I could relax in the evening when the kids had gone to bed or on the weekend during calmer times.  There's nothing more joyful than participating in the interaction of water + color on paper and reveling in  how each image is it's own unique experience while resonating to over arching exploration of branches, figural space and implied shapes battling with abstraction.

The green blue study reads more abstractly as a series of lines or tree trunks cleared branches which were well overhead as these were larger more mature growth with more expansive trunks.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these.  More will follow from this series soon!

Green blue study

A Sacred Place in the Well of Imagination

This sketch I share happened when I was thinking alot about sacred places and spaces after I traveled to Jerusalem during the Summer of 1994.  I visited many spaces there which felt like this and somehow it resonates still after all of these years.  Perhaps its the cupping shape of the dome overhead which embraces or its proportion width to height.  I don't know.  But intuitively it feels like a space for contemplation....

Letting Nature Speak - Lines Which Inspire

Today I skied Stowe's Mountain's heralded Perry Merrill trail in gorgeous March sun.

Hoar frost stuck intensely to the branches today frozen their from last night's sudden snow and drop in temperatures.  The upper reaches of the mountain was a wintry wonderland and a true albeit ironic gift of spring.

This is what inspires me to design.  Nature's gifts!

Fingers of branches reaching up to the sky yearning to burst forth with Spring's budding energy.

BBBD 2011 - Bill Reed on Integrative and Regenerative Design

Almost a week ago at the annual Efficiency Vermont Better Buildings by Design Conference Bill Reed opened the conference Wedensday, Feb 9th with a galvanizing keynote address.  He spoke about how important it is to start the design process back out at the water ecosystem not on the perimeters of a project site. I've seen Bill speak before at AIA National conference in San Antonio in 2007 and at the USGBC 2008 Greenbuild in Boston. He's inspirational as a keynoter.  Here as then he reminded me and the likely 500+ in the room of the importance of seeking to understand the interaction between natural systems and forces on and around a site in our design work.

As a founding member of the USGBC, Bill also reiterated his view the LEED rating system is not an end unto itself but rather a means to the end point of creating sustainable places and communities.  Often as he said "In

Dream Pre Fab Home

Color Rendering  - South Elevationf

A new prefab home design

Over the last few months, I've been developing an idealized pre-fab-ready small home.  Architects and designers are always designing their ideal home, that rustic retreat we've always wanted.

Of course, this exercise was also an excuse to do a couple of other things. First, was to provide a southward tilting roof for possible solar electric PV's to contribute towards a low energy or net zero use footprint.  

Design Details

The home is sited due south to maximize solar orientation for passive solar heating within the home and solar energy generation. Second, to keep the

(Slow) Green

Awareness of our actions and consequences
We are awakening at last
Reading and seeing catastrophic oily substances surrounds us on the news
Chocking shorelines, habitats, livelihoods and communities
Illuminating our dependence upon oil and other fossil fuels
Revealing tragic vulnerabilities
Intensifying resolve to change behaviors
To finally make a difference
Stemming from another time and place
A different set of rules and natural patterns
No longer valid or reliable
Instead a changed world behaves unexpectedly

The idea of growth for growth's sake so anachronistic
Replaced by the need to think smaller, leaner and self-sufficient
Embracing a changed natural world
A difficult sickened place needing productive cultivation
A multi-generational effort awaits, so daunting
Achievable if together we set one foot in front of another
Beginning on the slow journey to a sustainable future

No longer just a few, but now a motivated many.

Spirals Break Away

Wandering currents swirling

Caressing solids granite masses

Intertwining together in chilly and warm sensation

Burbling patter rhythmically appealing

Lulling sounds of watery delight

Blending with clicking cicadas and cawing crows

Loamy soil wafting hints of wildflowers

Slippery stones with mossy overgrowth tickle my chilly toes

Cool undercurrent relieving my ankles

Strong summery sun warming my forehead

Rivulets of water running down my brow

Riverside boulders and brush sharply cut by shadows

Reflecting in the shimmering, glassy surface

An alter ego completing its opposite

Together both create the whole

Unifying them into a singular presence

A fleeting glimpse of perfection

Sunday Poem

The sounds of the cello vibrate

loosening the chords of memory

bringing painful moments gingerly

to the open air

With gladness I greet them

finally able to see what I was missing

the darkness so obscured

the simple answers overlooked

Now what to do but to move on

with a knowing, tired smile

a warmer heart for sure

the music strenghthens dampened spirit

The dawn beckons with its light

here in the quiet darkness of night

oh, what to do but to write

bringing forth insights long dulled

Fingers on the bow poised for flight

Friday Poem #2

To the Sky and to the Trees:

Interlacing branches reach for the sky

Wandering fingers framing the winter's day

Twisting and turning, growing thinner the higher they go

Waving and undulating with the wind's ever changing embrace

Barren in this cold time while plush in the summer

Budding in chartreuse electric glory in the spring

Stately greens of varying chroma in the summer

Firey colors in all their fall glory

Dancing slowly at night with the moon and the stars

Energetic conversations with all living creatures

Whispering of leaves and waving branches

The sighing of the living earth surrounds

Hypnotic drone of ciacadas and tree frogs 

Hoots and howls, barks and whispers of the evening

Combine together with the rhythm of the wind

Forging the music of summer

So different from Winter's slumber

Barren branches, hibernating creatures

A time of slow anticipation

The promise of summer so appealing

Coy promise of winter's quiet

Leads to joyful springtime delight

Dancing through the seasons

Eternal rhythm's of life

Friday Poem # 1

Sitting in the warmth of a picture window

I gaze out to the frozen river

Warmed by the sun's embrace

Shiny water droplets from branches

Blue Sky above unbroken by clouds

The quiet of a slumbering land

Fallow, waiting for spring

Snow insulating the frozen earth

Creatures quietly going about

Momentary thaw a delight

The cycle of the season's

Offer's the promise of regeneration

A trio of deer feeding in the brush

Quietly foraging in the sun

Heads look up suddenly at my presence

eye to eye we stare

Smiling eyes of quiet co-existence

We look at one another for a while, silent

I turn with firewood in arms

Deer lower their heads to feed

Dripping water glistening in the sun...