In my early twenties, I took a painting hiatus--a near three year break that was agonizing. When I began painting again, I was intrigued by images that were a perfect balance between abstract and representation. In this vain, I completed a number of paintings that focused on branches. Looking at the images one way they were abstract compositions that relied on line, value and subtle color variation. Looking at them with just a slightly different perspective it was easy to recognize that they were carefully crafted paintings of tree branches. Today I only seem to paint tree branches as a part of a larger landscape composition, but I'm still intrigued by both representation and abstract images. These days they seems to fall more into one category of the other with the common denominator being the landscape. This first image is called Winter's Warmth and it tries to hover that line between representation and abstraction, with a focus on contrast and design. Also, the tree branches are back but this time, firmly anchored to the ground.