"The Veteran"

I really like the complexity of old, gnarled trees. It is fun to paint the patterns that naturally arise in them. This old tree had obviously survived many Winters, so I called it "The Veteran".

A few months after I did this painting, I drove by this old tree and many of the crooked limbs were gone. I guess they became a hazard since they were hanging over the street, so they had to be taken down. You can see from the stump on the front of the tree that it had survived this treatment before. It still cuts an imposing figure in the neighborhood.