Each painting is actually a composite of three different perspectives. 

1) The foreground curves slightly toward the viewer.

2) The midground curves back and away from the viewer.

3) The upper, more distant view of the tree tops curves dramatically inward, directly overhead so viewers senses they are looking up through the branches into the sky. 

1st

I start by laying on the forest floor. Not only does it get me up close to the smell and sense of the forest that day, it gives me the perspective of what a small child might see when walking in a forest. 

I frequently photograph children enjoying a solitary walk or playing together in the timber. They seem to engage in the sense of wonder and awe, what I call “wow” that we tend to lose as adults.

One of the goals of my large, tall treescapes is to recapture this special connection between humans and tall forest timber.

2nd

Then I move to a kneeling position to get a sense of what the tree line appears. This is probably the perspective that most traditional flat landscape paintings are built upon—even mine from the past. From this perspective, I want to capture the essence of a normal view people might have when walking through a grove of trees. It gets the base of trees up to about eight feet.

Since we are always, unconsciously, looking up and down inn our nature walks, we often don’t realize that a straight ahead view is rather limited. The trees are often cut off at the bottom and the top. That’s why traditional paintings are either set way back at a distance to capture the full tree (but they look tiny) or too close and all the painter can get is the tree trunk.

You’ll find this section of a forest view in the center of my tall treescapes. And the shift of perspective will draw your eyes both up and down as they would on a natural walk in the woods.

3rd

Finally, I focus on my favorite part, the sweeping view of the top-most branches of a tree. This is the arc of the forest as it meets the sky.

I have to photograph this separately and really work at getting the branches to move up and out and somewhat overhead of the viewer.

I’ve found that the best way to paint this effect is to curve the canvas dramatically inward at the top.

You’ll also notice that I don’t put a frame edge there. That’s because I want the painting to just fade away, as it does in nature, rather than being boxed in and limited. As far as I know, I’m the only artist that has done this with treescapes. It’s exciting to be the first!