Silver birch face

Posted on April 27, 2024 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged bark, Close up, Face, Painting ideas, Pareidolia, Pattern, Photo, Silver birch, TreesLeave a comment

My friend took this photo for me as the camera on my phone keeps glitching. I’m part way through painting a green woman for someone and I want the background behind her to be trees.

There are silver birches in the grounds of the community centre where I attend our art group so we went out and I chose the trees I wanted pictures of. It helps to see the shapes of their trunks and branches instead of trying to imagine them. The details of the bark are fascinating and I hope to try and reproduce the patterns.

I’ll post a photo of the work in progress later but I want to tidy it up a bit first, it’s a bit like a mediaeval illustration at the moment, I need to make it more subtle.

I think there’s a bit of Pareidolia going on here as I can see a face in the tree bark.

Out and about

Posted on January 12, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Balcony, Etruria, Industrial museum, Jessie Shirley's bone and flint mill, Photo, Silver birch, Stoke-on trent, Trees, View2 Comments

Silver birches in front of the chimney at Jessie Shirley’s bone and flint mill in Etruria, Stoke on Trent today. It was very grey and overcast, but the silver white bark of the trees shone out like exclamation marks against the industrial museum background. It’s funny how your eyes accommodate and let more light in than the camera does. To me they really stood out. But they photo is really dull, maybe I should edit it?

I’m thinking of doing some volunteering in the near future to get out and about more, Etruria seems like somewhere to start. x

Silver birch

Posted on November 3, 2023November 3, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Autumn, Blue, Leaves, Memory, showery sky, Silver birch, Tree, Trunk, WhiteLeave a comment

Silver birch trees are much whiter than they used to be when I was a child. They still have dark marks on their trunks, like upward facing arrows. But the dirty grey bark of polluted air in the past decades has seemingly reduced. But particulates still float in the air, and carbon dioxide is increasing, so maybe the trees will get bigger as they absorb the gas?

This beautiful example is starting to lose it’s leaves. Shown against the white and blue of showery sky.

Using offcuts

Posted on May 22, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Collage, Dawn, off cuts, post-it's, red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning, Silver birch, silver foil, Trees2 Comments

I’ve always got scraps at the moment, I cut and glue pictures from one sketchbook to another, I’ve got offcuts of monoprints and post-it notes I’ve made notes on one side of. It seems a shame just to throw them away. Plus it was a use for some old silver foil for the grey clouds.

This was inspired by an orange pink dawn yesterday morning, before the downpour and the fact I’ve noticed Silver birches are actually much whiter these days (cleaner atmosphere?)

Silver Birch?

Posted on November 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged City, Life, Memory, Pollution, Silver birch, Thinking, Trees, White bark, WorldLeave a comment

When I was young silver Birch trees were greyish silver. I remember seeing some in our local park. Even when I came to live in this city they were silver grey…..

But now… Each time I see one its white?! Is that right, are they the same species? I think they are…. I think it indicates how much less industrial smoke is in the air? And are trees growing faster now? They seem to shoot up. If they were cut down would their tree rings be wider, fatter, more growth in a year than before the pollution started to reduce… Memories of a changing world.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Silver birch