I became obsessed with drawing trees when I was a teenager. I took the same approach as I did when learning to draw the human body — trying to understand the structure, the weight, the proportions. But I would constantly get lost in the details, and the results didn’t look convincing. Trees are much too complex to follow rules; each is unique, constantly changing character through the seasons, and I’ve made my peace with that.

Of course I keep looking to see how the masters solved trees. (I recommend Matisse, Félix Vallotton, and Wayne Thiebaud.) But I admit the most important lesson came from watching the TV host Bob Ross: If you want to draw trees, you have to loosen up and be in a good mood.

We released a special edition calendar with high res art prints of some of the most popular ink drawings.