Anna Armona’s Watercolor Trees
For any of my you that follow my boards on Pinterest, you may have noticed my Trees Board. There are a few themes that I’m especially fond of and Trees have always been one of them. Going back to when I was quite young I can recall being drawn to them in a near intimate way. Drawing them repeatedly with pencils and magic markers, and even painting them or creating them in Vectors a few years back for Wall Decals. They peek in and out of work that I’ve done over a period of decades and I’ve even found myself drawn to specific trees I’ve come across, taking photos of them or just having permanent impressions of them in my minds eye. Like the Dogwood that my Mom planted at our childhood home, another that I spent time under with a beloved dog I had as a tween, the apple tree that grew outside of a bedroom window that I loved more than the house, or an amazing old tree on a wide open pasture here in Florida that seems to be a few hundred years old and a shelter to many bovine. I’ll have to take photos of it some day, it’s truly quite remarkable.
I was told by a Native American back in R.I., that if you need to find peace in your life and to get centered, spend time with a tree. Sit with it, lean against it, touch it, listen to it. Natives are deeply connected to trees and speak at length about them in legends and teachings. They believe them to possess a life force, and connect us to our ancestral roots.
The Tree of Life has symbolism in many cultures with an entire belief system surrounding it, as is summarized by Tree of Life Teachings. I recently found myself pondering my Lady Fingers Tree that is on my living room wall – and how it reminds me of my Mother’s spirit – her having recently passed over, it reminds me how she is not really gone, she is remembered and her branches are her children and her grandchildren, and the children they will have one day.
With all of that said, I’d like to introduce these paintings to you by Anna Armona. She’s a young artist I came by on DeviantArt. She has a lovely loose way of painting watercolor scenes with trees, branches and dappled leaves as the central theme. I love the way she reveres her paper, touches her paint to it wet in wet and let’s it work its magic. Her trees then sprout of these wet washes the way that a real tree does, from a warm, well lit spot and touched with just the right amount of fresh water. I find them quite magical as they capture the essence of trees.
Follow Anna Armona on DeviantArt to see more of her work
