Reciprocity

 

Nature replenishes my spirit in so many ways. Clean air and water. The simultaneous serenity and thrill while standing on the edge of millions of acres of public lands. Sunshine warming my face. The sound of rain on my rain jacket. Watching a bee fly; toads, deserts, murmuration.

Trees are an organism for which I am supremely grateful. I have always loved them, even before I could understand the depth of what that means.

On a grand scale, trees have sustained cultures for millennia. Closer to home and more personally, trees provide life-saving shelter, shade from the powerful sun, bone- and muscle-warming heat, magnificent beauty, the sound of wind moving through the leaves.

So I've been pondering lately, what do I give back to them? Indeed, what is the exchange between all of nature and myself? It did not take me long to make the connection.

A spotlight. Through my art and writing I shine a spotlight on the beauty, magnificence, importance, and cultural community that trees and forests provide; the very reasons we should be protecting, respecting and thanking them.

My hope is that my work will inspire others to broaden their interest in trees, to the point of finding themselves caring about trees in their own environment, maybe even becoming stewards of the land.

In the spirit of paying it forward, for the trees, click here for a beautifully made documentary created by a young Alaskan woman about the clear cutting of old growth forests in the Tongass National Forest of southeast Alaska.

Reciprocity.

GINKO BILOBA TREE

On our recent visit to Dinan we came across this wonderful specimen of Ginko Biloba, apparently one of the first to be planted in Brittany which features in a census of important trees in the region.

 

FLOODED WOODS

Winter sunshine is so welcome and this vignette seen in the woods last Saturday caught my eye and became the inspiration for a piece of textile art.

I've written a complete blog about how I put the picture together so do go and have a look at   

https://valeriejaneg.blogspot.com

 

SILVER BIRCH BARK

My silver birches have beautiful bark and looking carefully I can see quite a few different colours, sketched here in Derwent drawing pencils and graphitint on crumpled watercolour paper.

My next step is to interpret the drawing in textile,  here using silk and organza appliqueed onto a cotton background and hand embroidered with yarns and threads.

CAMPSITE COLOUR

We're back from a camping holiday in Brittany with a few nature sketches to share.  This was the view between the pitches at Benodet.  I'm always impressed with how well the French campsites arrange their places and plant a variety of trees for shade and interest.  This is drawn with a Micron 05 pen and museum watercolour pencils.

Campsite sketching in the Pyrenees

SURREY HILLS

When I was in England last autumn I took lots of photos when I was out walking with my daughter, the colours were wonderful and the far views fantastic.  Here's my first sketch done in water soluble Triplus pens.

PLANE TREE BARK

 

I love trees and I love fungus and finding the two together is a bonus.  During our trip to the Loire valley in September the weather was very windy and the plane trees were shedding their bark. I picked up a few scraps to draw and then I made this embroidery inspired by the patterns and beautiful colours.

CATHEDRAL OF THE FOREST

 

I've been inspired by the lovely photos of Starr White at Wonderland Woods to draw this version of the trees near her home.  I used my favourite colour pencils on papyrus which I have bound into a new sketchbook.

Grand Dame - Maree

n. pl. grandes dames also grand dames

1. A highly respected elderly or middle-aged woman
2. A respected woman having extensive experience in her field
3. A woman regarded as the most experienced, prominent, or venerable member of her profession, etc.

The Blue Gum trees (Eucalyptus) on our property are showing signs of the winter, with lots of dead leaves and grass at their bases, a sure danger should our property catch fire this season. Our fire breaks haven't been done yet, normally we're finished by now, but we're late because the tractor has been out on hire and should be back in a couple of days.

Despite the freezing cold, I took a stroll down to the bottom of our property to find something to sketch and this tree is one of my favourite grand old dames that has managed to escape burning for the past couple of seasons.

Parker Fountain pen with Black Quink ink and Rohrer & Klinger Verdura Green ink, a bit of water added. Done in my Moleskine Sketch-book.

Deck Decor

The squirrels and birds have been decorating my deck with bits and pieces of what they're feeding on--lots of tree buds and hackberry fruits, it appears!

Happy New Year 2013!

Never be afraid to reinvent. A new year gives you permission to be whoever you wanna be.

 Blue gums on our property - pencil and oil pastels

The past year has not seen me sketching in nature as often as I would have liked to, life seemed to take on a will of its own!

I never make resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, saying I'm going to exercise, saying I'm going to sketch more, sanctioning and moulding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. But if I did have to make one resolution, it would be "Don't weep for yesterday, it is over. Smile from your heart, for you have been given a brand new year. Make the most of it."

Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right!

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Wintry Blue gums - Maree

We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away. 

- Zhuangzi 

A few weeks ago we were still gripped in the icy throes of winter but the Blue gum trees (Eucalyptus) on our smallholding (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa) were already showing signs of new life, ready to shed their blue/grey leaves in exchange for brighter greens.

::

Barren and bare - Maree

W&N watercolour in hand-crafted sketchbook with linen satin-finish paper

Here in South Africa most of the landscape is still barren and bare after winter's onslaught, but Spring is making a concerted effort to show herself - her reign is normally short-lived, quickly being ousted by Summer's determination to make the most of the months ahead until Autumn has her turn again.

The garden like a lady fair was cut 
That lay as if she slumbered in delight, 
And to the open skies her eyes did shut; 
The azure fields of heaven were 'sembled right 
In a large round set with flow'rs of light: 
The flowers de luce and the round sparks of dew 
That hung upon their azure leaves, did show 
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the ev'ning blue.
 ~ Giles Fletcher

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I like these cold days - Maree

I like these cold, gray winter days.  Days like these let you savour a bad mood.  

~Bill Watterson 

Three trees on our smallholding that got caught in one of the fires we had on our smallholding a couple of days ago. It spread from the neighbours even after we thought that one had been extinguished properly - obviously not so. It always amazes me how the smallest spark can appear from nowhere....

::

 

Early Signs of Spring

The Redbuds started blooming 2 weeks early this year. The Red Maples and Yellow Jessamine started popping in late January and the other day I saw a Dogwood in bloom!

We've had a mild winter but goodness, what's the rush here?

What if there were no more trees...? - Maree

If you cut down a forest, it doesn't matter how many sawmills you have if there are no more trees.
- Susan George

W&N watercolour on Amedeo 200gsm - no preliminary sketching

A scenery not far from us on the road to Magaliesburg. Tarlton is host to large plantations of Blue gum trees (Eucalyptus), which were originally planted for the mining industry to be used as supports under-ground in the mines. Although many of the trees have been cleared to make way for progress (and this is on-going), we are still lucky enough to have pockets of these trees on private properties.

Rhus lancea - Maree

People in suburbia see trees differently than foresters do. They cherish every one. It is useless to speak of the probability that a certain tree will die when the tree is in someone's backyard .... You are talking about a personal asset, a friend,
a monument, not about board feet of lumber.
- Roger Swain

21st November 2011 - Finally we've had some GOOD rain! (30mm in a couple of hours) and this will really boost my lawn, which has still been yellow since the winter. The trees are also all fresh, green and sparkling clean, as is evident from the sketch of a few leaves of one of my Karees (Rhus lancea) indigenous to Southern Africa. It's a bit of an untidy tree, with a weird growing habit of the branches backing up on one another and having most of its leaves right at the tip of the branches. It has a graceful, weeping form and dark, fissured bark that contrasts well with its long, thinnish, hairless, dark-green, trifoliate leaves with smooth margins.

The small, inconspicuous flowers are presented as much-branched sprays which are greenish-yellow in colour and are produced from June until September. The male and female flowers occur on separate trees (luckily I have quite a few of them in my garden, so some must be male and some female). The fruit are small (up to 5mm in diameter), round, slightly flattened and covered with a thin fleshy layer which is glossy and yellowish to brown when ripe. The fruits are produced from September until January.

The fruit is eaten by birds such as Bulbuls, Guinea fowl and Francolins. Game animals such as Kudu, Roan antelope and Sable browse the leaves of the tree which can serve as an important food source for them in times of drought. The sweetly scented flowers attract bees and other insects to them. Now re-named Searsia lancea, it is useful in providing natural soil stabilisation and increasing infiltration of rainwater into the soil thus reducing erosion and raising the ground water table.

The leaves of the Karee provide valuable fodder for livestock but can taint the flavour of milk if eaten in large quantities by dairy cattle as a result of the resin contained in them. The tree is also an important source of shade for livestock in certain regions. The bark, twigs and leaves provide tannin. In the past the hard wood was used for fence posts, tool handles and parts of wagons. Bowls, tobacco pipes and bows were also made from the wood. The fruits are edible and were once used as an important ingredient of mead or honey beer. The word karee is said to be the original Khoi word for mead.

(With this sketch, I've reached my 200th post here on this blog. Whoot whoot!)

Nature's Air conditioner - Maree

“The net cooling effect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.”
—U.S. Department of Agriculture

The jacaranda trees are in full bloom all over South Africa right now and they put up a truly spectacular show of purple as well as a carpet of purple blooms, which pop and crunch under your feet as you walk over them.

Acacia 'karroo' sketch - Maree

Half the interest of a garden is in the constant exercise of the imagination.
(Mrs. C. W. Earle)

EberhardFaber 2½ HB Pencil sketch with colour wash on Daler-Rowney Acid-free Heavy Weight 220gsm (135lbs) sketching paper - 6" x 8" - sketched in my garden, Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa.

My Acacia 'karroo' trees are dressed in their full green summer finery and what fascinates me is that, as soon as the end of the day nears, the fine, feathery bi-pinnate leaves start closing, folding together until the tiny leaves are tightly scrunched together, opening again early morning, as if to welcome another summer's day with open arms - wonderful!

The thorns are still small so early in the season, but grow to real whoppers towards the end of summer and can inflict really painful stabs!

Also known as sweet thorn, Karroo thorn, mimosa thorn, cockspur thorn, Cape gum (English); soetdoring, doorn boom (Afrikaans).