The old one

 

In my previous post about the Mantingerveld I have written that there are some oak trees in that Natural Reserve and this is one of them.

The tree is old, large and it was not possible to get a good picture of the whole tree. The tree came in full view behind some other trees and bushes and stepping back would have meant that those bushes were blocking the view on the tree. So my reference picture does not show the whole tree.

My painting does show even less of the tree, I should have selected a much bigger piece of paper to do justice to the size of this oak tree. Unfortunately I do not have the facilities to paint that large. 

So I decided to paint just a part of the tree, placing it in the middle of my paper, making the trunk and the large lower branches as small as possible - so that the other branches would still have some volume - and just finding out what I would end up with. 

In May the leaves are still fresh green and small, so there was not much foliage to be painted. Most of the leaves are at the end of the branches, not visible in this painting. The structure of this old tree is still visible, because it is so early in Springtime and that is exactly what inspired me to make the reference picture and this painting.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.