Have you ever been on a delightful hike and wanted to bring the sights and feel of your hike home with you? Can you capture that in a painting? I'll accept that challenge!

When I’m hiking, I love to look at all the trees. This got me thinking about what a great texture bark has. So, there I am taking pictures of trees and picking up bark off the ground everywhere I go. Back in the studio the fun can begin. I start picking out what bark to use and print out the photos of the trees. I start to think about the overall feeling I want the painting to have.

Now this could be a disaster. I might hate the way the bark looks after I have embedded it in the wax. It may not work at all. But, that is the fun of a challenge right?

I’m happy to say the results are great. The bark looks darker under the wax. Even better I was able to color the bark using wax and pan pastels. I enjoyed this challenge so much I will be doing more paintings using bark. If you would like to see some of the paintings I have created so far using bark then check out my Landscape collection.