STORY BEHIND THE ART OF HEIDI SNYDER

22nd Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists at Marin Art & Garden Center

Western redcedar

Thuja plicata

As with so many art projects this project chose me rather than the other way around. 

This spring we were driving around on the Olympic Peninsula in the northwest corner of Washington State. We were in Olympic National Park which encompasses nearly a million acres. It protects a vast wilderness, thousands of years of human history, and several distinct ecosystems including temperate rain forests with never-timbered old-growth forests. We were on a deserted road in the middle of very dense woods (prime Bigfoot habitat: you can’t see what’s 3 feet away from you) when we came across a small sign “Big Tree”. At the shore, trees longer than my house with a base diameter in excess of 10 feet were strewn about like matchsticks, and close to Olympic National Park where we were, there were nothing BUT big trees. So I was curious and wanted to know what the locals considered big. Well, we weren’t disappointed. 

A few yards away from the road in the midst of ever green, ever damp and ever moisture dripping vegetation was this behemoth, a Western Red Cedar. There were other cedars around, but not as impressive as this one. A trunk had broken off one side and this trunk was probably twice as tall as my house is long. It lay off to one side like a twig, huh! There were trees growing out of and on top of huge burls, as well as bushes, ferns, etc. (I later edited these out when I drew it). I could barely make out the top of the tree looking up into the dense green canopy which bathed everything in an eerie, indirect and otherworldly light. 

I walked all around the tree, crawled into it, touched it, took pictures from all angles, including from the inside looking up. How do you render something like this? What do you focus on? Roots, height, leaves, bark, shape, what?

I finally decided to focus on the base of the tree and its visible roots. I edited out a lot of vegetation in order to focus on the structure of the tree. After all, without this massive base there would be no tree, certainly not a massive one. To show the extraordinary size I added a grown Black-tailed deer, a local deer species. I needed something to clue in the viewer that this was not just a “Big Tree”.

Cedars have long been revered and used by indigenous peoples for things such as food, shelter, clothing, utensils, transportation and religious purposes. When people look at my cedar tree, I want them to get a sense of its essence: the feel (damp, lichen and moss covered), its burliness, its huge size, its convoluted and maze-like root system, its habitat (temperate boreal forest), and finally its long lasting presence, especially measured in human years.

So I put the tree base dead center, showcasing the roots as big as trees themselves. I bathed everything in an iron oxide wash front and back (I work exclusively on semi-translucent double sided drafting film), building up the layers and trying to keep a cool feel despite the warm underpainting. There is so much to see and explore on this tree and whatever you see, realize you are in the presence of a true presence. 

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Read more about this artist’s work: Out of the Woods