


Spring trees are beautiful for the bright, vibrant green they bring back into our lives after the long, cold winter. Summer trees are wonderful for the shade they give us, and for the speckled sunlight they let leak in. Autumn trees are amazing for their varied colors, and the crinkly, crackly carpets they send to the ground for little feet to kick around and jump into. But winter trees? They tend to get a bum rap.
Bare and twisted, gnarled and lumpy, they don't have the benefit of soft fluttering leaves to make them endearing to us. They are stark and can sometimes appear harsh and "spooky". So what do winter trees have to offer? A
lot!

Because there are no leaves to block our view, we can see the structure of the trees. We can see how they have grown, where a branch might have broken, and how the tree healed itself. We can see how birds nests were secured to their limbs, and we can learn about amazing things like
fractals (
even more info
here).
Best of all, looking at winter trees can be a great opportunity for creative time. Drawing from nature can sometimes prove difficult for beginning little artists. Drawing winter trees is a great way to start because trees are made up of simple repeating structures, and they are never perfect, so the drawings always will be!

Long story short, winter trees are awesome. So go outside this weekend and take some pictures, play "I spy", make some
blind contour drawings, or maybe even a
sculpture (although probably on a little smaller scale, at least for starters...).
Yay for winter trees!