sustained investigation #1

The image I chose to woodburn is of a tree in winter. There is a stone wall that is mostly invisible due to snow drifts and the occasional fence post along that stone wall. This project is significant to me because the image I used as a reference is of a tree on a farm on my mother’s side of my family where I spent much of my childhood. This tree has stood in the field for decades and I have climbed it multiple times. I have wanted to use it for a subject of art for a while, but I never could make it fit a project just right until now.

To create my piece I used a woodburner. I burned the tree into an old wooden shingle from a bundle. The shingle was sitting in the bundle for many years, all of those years outside, and due to this exposure to the elements the shingle has a greenish grey tint that I like the look of much more than a new shingle.

Wood burning is a relatively new process to me and it required some experimentation to get it right. On the woodburner, I used a tip that had an angled edge and flat areas that beveled to the edge. I liked this tip because I could use the edge for thin detailed lines and I could shade with the flat sides. I began with the stone wall and foreground and then moved up the tree. One hiccup in the progress was that the shingle is not perfectly flat. It has grooves that run with the grain and make shading difficult because you have to get into the cracks to have a smooth finish. My next step with this project would be to add more little branches to make the tree seem less barren.