Because I’m apparently a glutton for punishment, I made another tree. This one, I did cop out on cutting out a bunch of leaves, though. I decided to go with a sort of spooky/melancholy feel for this one. I think it speaks a little bit of fall or endings. Like, the end of a season, or the children have grown up and gone.

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Again, I used the corrugation to create the feeling of bark. In this case, I was aiming for a little more gnarled and aged. I started out with a rough sketch on canvas board, and began adding layers and layers of cardboard. I didn’t have a particular plan or pattern in mind other than the general shape of the tree. I put the corrugations in whatever pattern seemed natural.

There is a lot of detail to the branches. I was torn between painting the background first and getting the tree started first. Some people have asked why I don’t paint the background THEN add the cardboard. The issue with that is that I’m not sure if hot gluing cardboard to acrylic paint will work well. I’m afraid the heat will bubble the acrylic or cause it to peel, thus reducing the resiliency of the artwork.

So I loaded the white gesso on, then started on the background. I decided that since the tree branches would be darker, it’d be harder to get the lighter background color over the top of that. It made for a LOT of detailed painting work on the dark branches, but I do think it was the right decision in the long run. I did whine a lot, though.