Monday, November 14, 2011

A study of the Cellon Oak in Alachua County



Notes From My Tree Journal

Yesterday I joined the Hogtown Plein Air Painters for their Sunday paint out. They were going to Cellon Oak Park, which is about 3 miles form my house so it was very convenient. I usually paint alone but it is one of my favorite painting spots in my neighborhood and I always enjoy painting the famous Cellon Oak. It is a massive tree, supposedly the largest live oak in Florida. My little 8x10 inch painting can't begin to do justice to it, but I really enjoyed studying it.

 Painting a tree that large in a small format immediately presents problems. It is almost overwhelming. Fitting it into the picture plane is prohibitive. If you fit it into the little format it looks insignificant, If you do it as I did, you have to crop it to give the viewer a notion of just how huge it really is. I did this painting in large format about 8 months ago and it was easier, though still difficult to show it's huge mass.

It's one of those challenging trees that I will continue to paint, hoping to get it right.

4 comments:

  1. Me and another arborist were there Monday to remeasure and inspect the cables and lightning protection. I love your painting and would love to own one! Hats off to a beautiful job in capturing the proportions.
    Joel Phelps
    Just Performance tree service
    rskybizintrees@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joel,
    Thanks so much for the kind comments. Please stop by my loft studio. I'd love to learn more about trees from you.
    Love,
    Linda

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your blog, person! Good trees.

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