At some point early in the week, I decided that the effort I put into the (first) Birch Tree painting was insufficient. Though I rarely do this I started it over. The reason I rarely do a painting again is I feel that if I don't succeed, I will have wasted twice as much time on one thing. Time doesn't allow me to waste time on one try, much less two tries. But I felt strongly about this project. There were elements in the first one that showed possibilities. I took the reference photo at Gabriel Park last winter and had thought about it quite a few times.
To be honest, it's hard to go wrong with birch trees in the sense that the white bark makes it immediately recognizable. The angle looking up is appealing to the eye, and....it's a tree. No one can accuse you of putting a branch in the wrong place. Speaking of which, I found it a challenge to get the branch coming in from the right side of the painting to look right. It followed the angle of the branch behind it, which made it look too symmetrical to the branch behind it.....If you want to read the boring details there's more below.
