SOFT LEAVES - BEECH

Entrée n° 77

This week’s piece was inspired by the beech woods near my home, which I return to often in my work. Right now, the ground is covered in wild garlic, and the beech trees are just coming into leaf. Young beech leaves are soft in spring because they’re still full of moisture and haven’t developed the tougher structure they gain later in the season.

 When I’m working on a piece, I like to do a bit of a deep dive into the history and traditional uses of the plant—it adds another layer to the work and connects it more deeply to the season. In folklore, beech trees were seen as keepers of knowledge. Their smooth bark was sometimes used for early carvings and inscriptions, long before paper was common. Interestingly, the Old English word bōc meant both "book" and "beech," because writing tablets were originally made from thin slices of beechwood. It’s details like these that quietly shape the way I see and draw the landscape.

The artwork is four times the size of the pieces I’ve been creating recently. It’s drawn on one of only four large sheets of Hayle Mill paper I own, so I wanted to approach it with care and intention. The layout and cropping of the piece are influenced by my long-standing appreciation for traditional Asian art—particularly the way nature studies are often partially cropped, suggesting a wider scene beyond the frame. That approach has found its way into my own work quite naturally over time.I chose to work in a portrait format, echoing the vertical compositions often seen in hanging scroll paintings, which feel especially in tune with the upward energy of spring—the way trees, plants, and shoots all reach and stretch as the season unfolds.