I took a photograph of this Red Pine Mother tree when at the Dumoine area with DRAW last year in August. I noticed many of the other artists photographing the same tree from a similar angle… it just was so inspiring!

We were in the Bissett Creek Park and I’d just wandered away from the water. This tree was the tallest one around and certainly had a presence. She was surrounded by other pines and deciduous trees and had taken some battering over the years, judging by her broken limbs, but she still stood proudly and bore cones to spread seed far and wide. I felt compelled to give her a hug.

I painted Red Pine Mother over a number of weeks in the winter this year, and it was refreshing to smell the pine as I worked. This format is a challenge to work on, as I had to keep adjusting the easel up and down as I worked on different areas. But, it worked for such a tall tree.