Two Trees Sculpture

Two Trees Sculpture 03/10/25

I started the companion piece, the larger tree, at the beginning of October. The process, as I noted last month demands that each section be dry before you can move on to the next one. This lends itself to my working pattern of being in the studio every other day.

The link to the drawings is essentially only the notion of working on the figures as a pair.

Larger Tree 09/10/25

Two Trees Sculpture 09/10/25

As I developed the larger tree the relationship between the two parts changed as each stage was added.

Two Trees Sculpture 10/10/25

The two parts work together in a manner similar to the Henry Moore two part reclining figures but there are obviously a lot of alternatives. There is probably a case for saying any two objects that stand together activate the space between them to effectively render another form.

Studio Scrapbook 13/10/25

I thought about the finish for the two objects on the 11^th October, another idle moment when an idea popped into my head and I drew it in my studio scrap book. Subsequently I decided that the marks should be leaf like.

Two Trees Sculpture 13/10/25

I added the larger form to the large tree to give a better balance and then patched the flaps where the lining paper didn’t stick properly.

Two Trees Sculpture 17/10/15

Ending up with this. I’ve still not decided which orientation the two pieces should have.

Two Trees Sculpture 20/10/25

This is where I left the piece on the 20^th October.

Two Trees Black

Two Trees White

When I painted the figures I laid the base for two big drawings.

Smaller Tree (detail)

The pattern was a loose leaf carved into a sponge.

Two Small Trees, Balby

During the latter half of the month we decided to have our open studio event on the last weekend in November so a lot of time was given over to cleaning and preparing for that event. The two small trees were mounted and varnished.

Jackdaw 28/10/25

A few days out of the studio led me to think about the difference between trees and birds, given that all my work lately has been centred around the garden space and exploring notions of property and commons, it’s past time that the inhabitants should be asserting their influence. I’ve been reading two books in particular alongside this process, Daniel Eltringham’s ‘Poetry and Commons‘ and Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley’s ‘Edgelands‘ . The latter is a difficult read because of the ‘poetic’ writing style and the former a difficult read because of the academic writing style. This particular poetic writing tells you what you should be feeling about the text and the academic spends a lot of time telling you what is going to be discussed later.

All this to say I though about jackdaws and made a small model because I’d seen (in my head) one sitting on the big tree.

Studio 31/10/25

Studio, ‘The difference between trees and birds’ on the left and ‘Two small trees’ on the right

So these are a couple of shots of the studio with the small trees and the large two piece sculpture now called ‘The difference between birds and trees’.

Drawing

I’ve continued to draw every day;

The October drawings, including the 2000th consecutive drawing can be seen here

…and the September images here

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

Or you can go the Galleries page on the top menu

The drawings are posted to  Instagram each day.