Studio Journal

I have recently been spending a large amount of my free time going for walks in the woods. I often sit down and make a sketch of an interesting area of a tree. I have been talking lots of pictures. Researching different species of trees and their bark has also been giving me inspiration.

Pictures like these are very helpful when im working in doors. I do not make any exact replicas, but it helps me greatly to see how natural knots and divides happen throughout a trees life. It is interesting how the growth and bending of branches is random, but there is often a symetry to its design. I would like to be able to capture this in my layout of trees.



This is something I continue to work on a little at a time. I gathered a bunch of pinecones of varying sizes. Some where closed tightly, and others were open to release their seeds. I make a pyramid out of wood and began glueing pine cones pieces to the outside. I use plyers to remove each piece from the pine cones and arrange them on the wood surface in size order. I try to match them up as tightly as possible so there are no gaps. I plan to use this method to the create the bark on atleast one of my trees.

This is another method I have used to create plant life. I sculpt aluminum foil and then paint the surface. When I painted a layer of flat or matte black paint first, and then added matte shades of green, I fixed the problem of the natural reflectiveness of aluminum foil. This method will be utilized down the line for many smaller plants. 

This is the type of bark I have been making molds from. Its the most interesting bark I have found that is still plain enough that a mold wont cause undercuts. This is wut the surface of my larger trees will look like. After lots of walks in the woods I have also decided that I need a good tree stump. Gonna keep lookin. . .