BIRCHES | CHRISTINA SCHLESINGER

BIRCH PAINTINGS

BIRCH DRAWINGS

Birches

I am with Robert Frost, “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

I love birches. I grew up in New England and they are everywhere.

I see them and paint them as bodies I know, especially female bodies, embracing, falling, supporting saying good-bye.

Birch Drawings

All the birch drawings are ink on rice paper, using dense Chinese ink and Chinese brushes that can go fat and wide and narrow and skinny all in one stroke.

I studied Chinese landscape painting the summer of 1989 and learned brush painting technique which I applied here.

I love the way the rice paper crinkles to suggest the texture of the birches’ white bark.