Winter Trees

This painting is what I call a “re-do”.  It was originally created for a bi-annual competition that listed weather as the theme.  The painting depicted my rendition of the ice storm of 2007 in Tulsa.  The thick layer of ice-laden power lines toppled over amongst grass and shrubbery hanging heavy from the weight of the ice.  A blue-gray sky that echoed the eerie quietness of the cold outdoors that gave way to the single sound of cracking and crashing tree limbs shattering upon the ground.  Thick epoxy was used to mimic the thickness of the ice.  It was my first completed landscape painting as the Ice Storm…and my second completed landscape painting as “Winter Trees”.  

I decided to keep a similar theme and create winter trees.  This time I used the cool colors of blues and violets to represent the coldness of winter in the trees.  The grass reflects the cool colors throughout but also has the white of snow and the brown of dead grass.  The red veins throughout the trees are representational of the life that still flows through them.  Unlike the grass, they are still alive.  I notice that when I sit in the treetops, they look like a beautiful, tangled mess that holds so many creatures among its branches.  I can feel the sway from the wind and the movements of squirrels jumping from limb to limb.  I have looked straight up to come face to face with a squirrel puzzled from my presence on its tree.   Winter trees may look bare and life-less, but if you climb up one as the forest is awakening, you will see they are fully alive. 

-Katy L. Casillas Gray, (KLCG) artist