Rainforest (Acrylic on Canvas Paper, 1998)

I sketched these trees in Vancouver's Stanley Park in 1998. I hadn't painted before, and was very noncommittal, buying only the bare necessities: five tubes of acrylic paint, one brush and some canvas paper. You might wonder, "What happened to those other colors?" At that time, more than two colors at a time intimidated me.
When I was very young, my brother James laughed at the way I drew trees. "You can always tell Joy's trees," he teased me. He didn't mean to compliment me, but now, years later as an artist, what more does an artist want than unique expression?
When I draw a tree, I don't have the sense I can choose from numerous options. Instead, the sentences--"This is how I draw trees" and "This is the only way this tree could have turned out"-- come to mind.