Sketchy Tree Series

Thank you to everyone who took the time to visit my solo exhibit at Vines of New York Art Gallery in Geneva over opening weekend! If you haven’t had the chance to see it yet, the show goes through the end of July. I’d love for you to see it in person (I’ll put more details at the end)! If you stop by make sure to sign the guestbook and let me know what you thought.

Here are a few pictures from opening night!

I am so thrilled to be able to debut the Sketchy Tree series that I’ve been working on this year! In celebration of letting this new body of work out into the world, I’m going to share a little bit more about some of my favorite drawings from this series this month.

My Sketchy Tree series has it’s roots (pun intended) in my 50 New York Waterfalls Project where I hiked to, photographed, and then painted 50 different waterfalls throughout the Finger Lake area. During the project I took hundreds of reference photos of anything that caught my eye along the trails. These photos became the inspiration for my Sketchy Tree series.

Searching Among the Branches

One of my favorite drawings from this series is “Searching Among the Branches.” While this wasn’t the first in my Sketchy Tree series, it is of the tree that inspired the series. At the bottom of Businessman’s Lunch Falls (or Wells Falls) in Ithaca is a grouping of trees where the soil has eroded exposing their roots. I thought it was the coolest thing being able to see all the twists and turns of a part of a tree that we normally don’t see. Several of the drawings in this series are of this particular tree at a variety of angles.

One thing that I particularly love about this specific drawing – “Search Among the Branches” – is that it ties in well with the original waterfall from this location. In both the ink drawing and the acrylic waterfall painting you can see the tree and the edge of the waterfall in the background.

The drawing was created with ink pens. I started with basic outlines and slowly added multiple layers of shading and texture in a loose intuitive way. At the end I added highlights of white and silver to make certain features pop.

Solo Exhibition at Vines of New York

Visit Vines of New York in Geneva, NY to see this drawing and more in person through the month of July (2022)! Vines of New York is located at 772 S Main Street in Geneva which is right along Seneca Lake on Route 14. The gallery is full of beautiful work inspired by nature and/or made from natural materials (and makes wonderful gifts).

Gallery hours are 10am to 4pm Thursday though Sunday (or by appointment). Here is their website for more information. They also have an online shop that has a couple of my pieces as well as work by other artists from throughout the gallery.

50 New York Waterfalls Project

Learn more about my 50 New York Waterfalls Project and view the paintings.

Learn more about Businessman’s Lunch Falls – Part 1 & Part 2

About the Artist

Laura Jaen Smith is an artist who lives and works out of Horseheads, New York. Her inspiration comes from observing the beauty she sees around her. After a decade living out west, she returned back to New York State and started seeing the same old places with new eyes. She is most interested in capturing small moments in nature that might otherwise be overlooked.