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The Tree of Life, pt 2

The First Branch

I made the first branch for the tree for another shoot that would require a smaller portion of foliage. In a sense, this was a sort of practice run for the larger project. Good thing, too.

Before I go on, I’ve been meaning to write a post about the cloudy sky backdrop in the background. Amelia, my girlfriend, painted it for me. As I am a lousy scenic painter, it was very nice of her to do this for me, and she did a really good job. During my Freekmagnet years, I found a lot of uses for the blue sky backdrop, so it seemed the smart choice to start with a new one. I ordered the natural seamless muslin from Chicago Canvas Supply, and with 10′ wide muslin at $5.50 a yard, I was able to buy enough canvas for 2 backdrops for under $40. Starting over from the beginning has been a long, tough road fraught with frustration and at times a sense of hopelessness. After not having any kind of studio to work in for the last few years, it’s been such a relief to have a new backdrop and a space to put it in.

For the longest time I was putting off moving forward with the project, so I focused on making the leaves until I could come up with a plan for the next step. I glued, cut and painted over 350 leaves out of newspaper and bailing wire, which took me a few weeks. I spent time examining the structure of real trees and wasted a lot of time searching on the internet for step by step instructions on how to build a life-like tree out of newspaper. My conclusion was this: Trees come in all shapes and sizes, so therefore there is no definitive way to build a tree-like structure out of newspaper. I decided that using actual tree branches and affixing the leaves to them would be the simplest, most economic way to build my tree.

First, I gathered some dead fall from the nearby riverbed and brought the branches home. I tried to select some branches to which I could fix a fair amount of leaves to, creating a lush globe of foliage. From there, with several branches completed, I would fix them to a larger piece of wood that would serve as the trunk of the tree.

Deciding that I wanted the wood of the tree to have a smooth surface, somewhat like the eucalyptus trees that are fairly common in this area, I sanded a branch down and sealed it with Durham’s Water Putty which I also sanded. From there, I painted it with gesso as a primer. The putty was a mistake. Once it dried, it started to crack and fall off. Since I considered this a trial run, I decided to leave it as it was and use something different as a sealer next time.

Twisting the wires of the completed leaves together into groups of 3 and 5, I made several forms with a central branch with smaller leaves protruding from the sides. The ends I left as 3 strands of 18ga. wire. I fixed the forms to the branch by drilling 1/16 in. holes into the wood and pushing the 3 strands of wire into the holes. I had the option of gluing the wires into the holes, but I decided to leave them loose in case I’d need to transport the final tree. Forming a sort of tripod, I found that the 3 “posts” of wire held the leaves fairly securely into the wood - as least, they were secure enough to use of one photo shoot. From there, I covered the exposed wires with florist’s tape and painted the tree branch to resemble a light colored wood.

In conclusion, my first branch I would consider an overall success. I will have to find another sealer instead of the putty. Although this particular branch will serve well for the photo I intend to use it for, I will explore the possibility of using branches that are fuller and have smaller branches in which to make a larger area of foliage.