tree drawing, Collapse to Nature

Collapse to Nature


Graphite on Illustration board 39 x 31

It’s not a pretty place nor a sanctuary but a place overgrown and flood damaged. Trees take over in a few years what once was a modern bridge constructed improbably to last. In a short time nature reclaims what man has built the only evidence that’s left is a concrete slab and a few bricks the rest gone, just a memory in the minds of a few old timers of what was.

But why draw this? When I came upon this place I was pulled in instantly- the complexities, the anti-compositional elements of the all-over design, busy, manic, a tempest in wood, yet extremely quiet; in its own way more peaceful now then thirty years ago. The day I did the sketches and took the reference photos was the last day of no snow the very next day we received a ten inch snow fall once again blanketing in white evidence of mans hand.

As a pencil drawing this was a challenge to capture that’s for sure, for four months I drew as manically as the landscape presented itself, a realistic Pollack in a sense. Not a rest for the eye and but a nod to lady nature who in the end comes back to claim.

Armin Mersmann