Tree rows at night - Created in Adobe Illustrator by Alex Amiot
The calendar was open to a cold month. Hanging years ago near the kitchen in my parent’s undersized main-floor bathroom for small people, the picture of the month was mostly white. Only a tree or two stood in the foreground of a snow-covered red-river-valley-like field.
The calendar creators used the word ‘austere’ to describe the landscape; my mother didn’t like it.
The Red River valley is indeed flat, but hardly austere. The calendar people somehow missed the expansive sky stretching from the tree rows in the east to the tree rows in the west, so too from north to south. The undisturbed snow adorning the lone foreground trees was overlooked, along with the appreciation for the peace that fills such a scene.
Who doesn’t love a good tree row?
[Today's illustration was made by drawing one evergreen and one star with a calligraphic brush. I turned the tree and the star themselves into scatter brushes by following directions in this comprehensive guide to illustrator brushes. Simply by clicking once and dragging using the star brush across the sky filled it with stars. That's one click compared the hundreds of clicks I made for the space shuttle Discovery. Thank the Lord for scatter brushes.]
