Don't ruin it!

(or less PC: Don't fuck it up)

I drove to PEI yesterday. Elliot has a hockey tournament. The drive was uneventful, we missed today's storm by well, a day, and the weather was perfect for driving - a lucky break for January. Heaven help us on our trip home tomorrow, hopefully the storm is done.

The drive from Halifax to Summerside is about three and a half hours of straight highway and a lot of farmland. I was amazed by the trees. (I want to say 'besotted', just to use the word, but I don't think that applies to trees.) I was transfixed. As I drove I studied the trees trying to figure out how I could draw them. I finally got Elliot to take a picture for later use:

Beautiful, no?

But how do you paint that on white paper? Because the magic of the tree is the white ice on the tips. If you take a white piece of paper, you'd need to draw in the trunks and branches delicately enough to leave nothing as the stunning part - you'd have to lay out the visible and let the nothing of the white ice be suggested. Suggested. For the viewer to experience without the interference of the artist's clumsy attempts to recreate the magic of... nothing.

Sounds like writing, no?

N