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In my traveling up to the Central Coast of California, I pass by many old oak trees along the road.  I look at each one and want to paint them all.  That's impossible, so I wait until one speaks to me with the most unusual character and this one did.  I have visited it several times first before I set up to paint it.  I took many photos of it, video and sketched it, then left.  On this day I set out to paint it no matter what, the weather was overcast with heavy fog in the early hours.  I drank my latte, ran around taking images of other oak tree-pasture scenes and then came back.  I was in heaven with that wonderful misty fog all over the Santa Margarita area.  I saw the sky getting lighter and drove quickly back to my old oak friend.  The fog lifted just enough to see the whole tree but cast a diffused light around it, the sun tried to peek through, but them became consumed by the heavy moisture in the air.  It looked so mysterious, spooky and yet making a bow to me as I stood there soaking up it's spirit.  Here was an old tree, centuries in the making to this point where the main trunk broke off decades ago.  Still the tree survived and began to grow various species of heavy moss and Beard Lichen upon it's boughs and smaller branches.  I saw so many greens on this tree and not one leaf remained.  Just draping beards that looked like he was hanging his laundry.  I'm not sure but I think the tree is dying.  I gave myself 1-1/2 hours to capture what I could.  My Chihuahua was with me and I told her to go lay down in her bedding I made in the back of my Jeep.  I also was very pressed for time since I was out of town and had to be somewhere to help a friend with her mother's estate.  So, I was feeling rushed but excited to have the moments available to record this tree into an art form. Here is an image or two of my painting on location and my Chihuahua in the back gate of the Jeep.

I had been reading Richard Schmid's older book R. S. Paints Landscapes and how he went about blocking in a tree in a misty setting.  So I drafted the main part of the tree trunk and boughs first, then began to work on the background sky and hillside trees.  I didn't overdo this as I wanted to leave room for mid values and laying in more paint on the second application.  I just wanted a block in first.  As I kept stepping back and squinting I saw more color tones and shapes to capture. The buildup of the moss on the boughs and draping curtains was a challenge because I didn't want to over-paint that in this workstudy capture.  So, I indicated the hanging lichen also known as Usnea, lightly, in order to paint in the backdrop of trees that would be the right value to make a contrast.  I changed some of the back tree colors to a ruddy, nutty red to add a compliment to all the greens in this art piece.  Besides I noted a color of that rusty red in the dead leaves that hung on the tree in parts still.  I began to define the branches more with a small filbert and it took on a stained glass pattern, next I added more thin jagged and tapered branches into the wet paint so the edges would be softer or more blurred.  That made the tree come to life on the canvas.  I was running out of time and my Chihuahua jumped up as she sensed my nervous system going into rapid gear. The painting was turning out good and seemed to paint itself, I felt the kindred spirit of Nature flowing into me and onto the canvas.  But I knew I had some studio work to do back in Southern Calif when I returned home.  I packed up the art gear and sadly drove away from my friend, the old bearded oak.  I spent the rest of the afternoon at my friend's house appraising things in her estate, then left for SoCal.  The next morning I began to make adjustments but I didn't want to overdo it.  Still adding the Beard Lichen proved to be a difficult challenge, I mixed up 3 values of a cool to lighter green in various hues to make it fit into the branchwork and blend into the background.  Then I used a paper towel to brush edges where I felt it was too much, I made it blur.  I had to go back and forth a bit by added more background, more twigs and some branches, then correct the value on the sky area to give it more light.  I also defined the broken trunk a bit more to show it once had something there, now gone.  All the time I was working on it in the studio I kept saying to myself, these corrections are necessary for me as I plan to make a much larger studio painting from this and I'll know what to do in that piece.  This small painting exudes mystery and that old spooky feeling I felt.  No malevolent or bad intentions where coming from that tree, just an ancient history of being around before the land was settled with ranches.   This is my tribute to the old oak tree.