02/10/2026
Every day is Arbor Day at Stangler Fine Art! My next painting in progress. I took a different approach this time and have been enjoying figuring it out. I started with no idea or preconceived directions/preliminary drawings, just literally looked outside my window and start painting. Lots of graphic lines going in multiple directions from the trees and shadows on the white sunlit snow. I was working quite fast trying to capture the feeling before I get into the details. After this photo was taken, I realized this was the first time I’ve painted a tree that I had planted. We have planted more than 75 trees on our property and I always wanted to have a birch tree to look at for reference, and this one was right there. It was about 8” basically a twig, when it was planted and it now is about 20ft tall. My experiment of having no connection with what I am painting has failed….. I think in a good way. If you read this far, I haven’t thought of a title yet.
