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Japanese Maple Tree Painting Powder Watercolor Painting on watercolor paper, 24" x 18"
Powder Watercolor Painting: watercolor powder dye on watercolor paper, 24" x 18" Paints: Fiber reactive, powder-based, watercolor dyes Paper: Cold press, watercolor paper Brushes: Watercolor brushes, various sizes; & a stiff, short bristled brush History & Background of Japanese Maple Tree Painting This painting was begun in 2001 and reached it's current state in January of 2008. The tree is based on a real Japanese Maple that grows in Hightstown, New Jersey. The outline of the tree was sketched en plein air (\äⁿ-ple-ner\) with brush and watercolor. Then within a two or three week period the tree was mainly completed indoors. After the tree was mainly completed I began working on the ground. Japanese maple trees grow very slowly, just like this painting. Now, this panting is based on a huge Japanese maple tree! This means the tree is probably very old. I'm not a horticulturalist, but I suspect it's at least 150 years old; though it can be over 200 because it's so big and developed. It is the largest and seemingly oldest Japanese maple I've ever seen and as such, it is, to me, a perfect subject and permanent inspiration. We all know that trees often live a lot longer than 150 or even 200 years. Still, a 150 years is impressive compared to our time and this reminds me of a hopeful statement in Isaiah 65:22, "...for as the days of a tree so are the days of My people..." This is claiming that "My people" will live as long as trees! What ever people can live as long as trees must be a very peculiar people. Peculiar is also the tree which this painting is based upon, though its home, Hightstown, New Jersey, is mostly humble. The tree grows in the backyard of an apartment where I lived for a couple of years. However, when I finally sketched the tree I was no longer living there, rather I was living about twenty miles north in Somerset. The apartment in Hightstown is within a building that looks like a fairly large house. However, it appears that many years ago the building's upper floor was converted into an apartment while the ground floor was converted into a dentist office. To this day, I have my teeth cleaned at this office, unless, by good chance, I visit some special family in the Boston area, in which case a very cool and generous uncle, who's a dentist, usually invites me to get my teeth cleaned at his office. Nonetheless, if I get my teeth cleaned in Hightstown it is always a special treat to visit my wise old friend in the backyard. In recent years this wise old friend has been pruned heavily and several large branches have been cut off. My heart, sadly, is cut with it, but hope still remains for it is written, "God prunes those He loves". If the tree in the painting came from Hightstown, then where did the landscape come from? Is that also from Hightstown? First, it may help to know that if one is beside the tree and faces it while looking east, then one will see the building where I lived, and have my teeth cleaned. If one looks west while facing the tree, one will see a fence and the side of a two story building fifty to seventy yards beyond the fence. If one looks north or south, then one can see houses and backyards. In short, this location, although charming in it's own way, does not inspire me as does the tree. So, as far as the landscape is concerned, I used my imagination. My imagination initially told me to put a stream behind the tree and rocky ground in front of it. Relatively soon after doing this I began a new job, teaching hand drum classes. When I began teaching I put the painting aside and it wasn't until about five years later, in 2006, that I even began planning to work on it again. At this time I had a new vision for the landscape. I wanted to re-work the stream so it would become part of the land. But it took almost another year before I could make time to begin. So, somewhere near or in 2007 I began the painting and re-working process. Slowly, my vision for this painting was emerging and finally at the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 the painting reached its last stages. Making the sky was the last challenge of this puzzle. I began the sky after the tree and ground were painted. However, I did add two branches with leaves, for the sake of balance and wholeness, after much of the sky was made. Can you guess which branches they are? In total, I worked the sky periodically throughout December 2007 and January 2008. The sky consists of three blues, which were painted in layers. First, I painted a thin layer of baby blue. Next, I added a thin layer of alpine blue and last I added a thin layer of turquoise. The green paint of the grass also has some turquoise within it, so one can say, adding turquoise to the sky was a way to bring greater harmony between heaven and earth.
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