A Christmas Trees Life

For my project of choice I decided to paint the life of a christmas tree. Usually, I tend to be drawn towards beaches and pretty sunsets, so this project was a nice change. I watched some videos and looked at pictures to learn how to paint a christmas tree. This helped make the paintings look more realistic rather than made up. In the first painting (shown on the left), I painted the trees in the forest. It looks fairly cold outside because of the dark skies and lots of snow. I attempted to paint this two different times. I learned that christmas trees are very uneven, cone shaped, and spiky. Layering different shades of green and adding a black shadow inside the tree created more dimension. In the second painting, I tried showing a tree inside of a big red truck. The truck is driving through the woods, bringing the christmas tree home. I liked the idea of this painting, but the tree inside of the truck ended up looking flat and unrealistic, and it is much harder to cast a shadow of a truck on white snow than one would think. Even though this painting was not the best, I do like the dimension I brought to the picture by adding trees both in front and behind the truck. The third painting was of a tree inside of someones home. The tree had lights, yellow and red ornaments, and big star on top. With presents underneath the tree, this painting looks very homey. I actually based this tree off of my grandparents tree set up. Overall, I am really happy with how my project of choice turned out. Not only did I learn how to paint realistic christmas trees, but I also had fun doing it!